The Great Big Bang Cover-Up

“I have no need of that hypothesis.”

Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827) in reply to Napoleon’s inquiry of why  Laplace had left God out of his book on astronomy

Our leading scientists are not disclosing all of the facts about what we know and don’t know about the Big Bang theory and are covering up evidence that the universe is in fact finely-tuned.

Why is this important?

Because a finely tuned universe leads to the conclusion that there is a mind or intelligence behind creation. This conclusion would then mean that science must evolve to incorporate intelligence into the scientific world picture.

And I am not talking about what is commonly called, “Intelligent Design.” Rather, I am saying that we must move beyond both science and religion and build a new worldview where mind ¾ our mind ¾- is placed front and center into any explanation of natural phenomena.

Using the tools of science means we must let the facts guide us to conclusions; we must not let preconceived notions, or prejudices, influence the results we obtain. We must not unquestionably accept dogmatic positions, regardless of the source of the dogma.

For example, creationists come to the analysis of natural phenomena with a preconceived belief in a heavenly God who guides the flow of the universe. This preconceived belief must be tested, otherwise it promises to distort an objective view of the natural world.

Modern scientists, in contrast, approach the problem from exactly the opposite standpoint: they believe or rather assume as a guiding principle that there is no intelligence behind creation. Science has become a quest to disprove the work of an intelligence in the universe. This preconceived notion must also be tested; otherwise, it too promises to distort an objective view of the natural world.

So scientists have the opposite prejudice as creationists: one assumes there is not an intelligence and one assumes there is.

It might be helpful to looking at the physical world with no preconception of whether a mind does or does not exist and see where the evidence leads. Now is a good time to do this because modern, materialistic science is well on its way to building an intellectual highway leading toward a world without God or spirit.

A good example comes out of recent reports from the scientific community that the detection of gravity waves proves that a version of the Big Bang, known as inflation, actually happened.

But observers won’t learn about the most important feature of the inflationary Big Bang by reading press releases coming out of the scientific community or mainstream news outlets. The fact missing from these reports is that cosmologists conceived of the inflationary big bang theory with the express intention of covering up evidence of design in creation. In other words, the inflationary Big Bang is not objective science, but rather an attempt to perpetuate a prejudice.

If this seems like a radical, provocative statement, it is intended to be. It is also true. Let’s consider the facts.

To begin with, the inflationary Big Bang is not a hybrid of economics and cosmology: it is a theory holding that the Big Bang, at its inception, expanded in size at an unimaginably rapid rate in a flashing moment. But then, the wild ride abruptly stopped, and the expansion slowed to the rate predicted by the original Big Bang theory. How fast was this instantaneous inflation? Roughly 50 orders of magnitude (10 to the 50th power) in less than one-trillionth of a second. (See J. M. Pasachoff & A. Filippenko, The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium, 402-06, (2d Ed. Thomson 2004)).

At this point, as a matter of common sense, we might have least two questions: (1) How can cosmologists possibly know that the Big Bang, presumed to occur 14 billion years ago, inflated in such a mathematically precise and odd fashion? and (2) Why would any rational person, much less a leading scientist, believe in a theory where the universe expands a rate faster than we can imagine?

It turns out that cosmologists concocted the inflationary Big Bang to explain away two significant problems that grow out of the original Big Bang theory. These are the flatness and horizon problems. Cosmologist label them “problems” because they suggest the universe had to be finely tuned at creation in order to lead to the type of universe we now find ourselves in.

Why is appearing “finely tuned” a problem? Because the phrase “finely tuned” is taboo in our current materialist worldview.   Those holding this worldview – meaning virtually the entire scientific community — believe that the fundamental constituents of the universe are mindless particles operating according to the laws of nature. No mind or intelligence was present at the Big Bang; rather, according to modern science, only “natural” (as opposed to supernatural) forces propelled the Big Bang residue to form into the natural world.

If conditions present at the Big Bang require the “fine-tuning” of physical constants, it suggests that some intelligence did the fine-tuning. For example, if we visit a neighbor with a piano and find the instrument perfectly tuned, we would naturally conclude that a piano tuner recently made a visit, as opposed to surmising that the force of gravity just so happened to randomly twist and turn the strings into tune.

But confronted by indications of design with the original Big Bang theory, modern cosmologists, who have ruled God or a Mind out of any respectable theory, rushed to their computers and figured out a way for the Big Bang to explode — or inflate — so that these two problematic features of the original Big Bang magically disappear. They wrote them off through equations. Inflation is not actually a physical event, but a mathematical model that manages to avoid the two, mind-suggestive problems with the original Big Bang.

Without getting into unnecessary detail, the flatness problem is a problem because it turns out that two independent and incredibly powerful forces of the universe — the repulsive force of the Big Bang and the gravitational (or attractive) strength of all the matter in the universe (or matter density) — are equivalent to such a high degree that it turns out we live in a “flat” universe. What is a flat universe? A universe filled with just enough matter so that stars that will neither scatter away to the far ends of space, nor collapse upon themselves. A flat universe has just the right matter density to ensure galaxies stay roughly in place across the heavens, in the same way that engineers send satellites into space with just the right force to ensure the satellites stay in orbit around the Earth. Since cosmologists assume the universe is about 14 billion years old, for the universe to be flat today means that it had to be almost exactly flat at the moment of the Big Bang; otherwise, the imbalance would have long ago tipped the universe toward a Big Crunch, or thrown the stars wildly into space.

Needless to say, if we were selecting universes, we would choose a flat one; the other two versions — a closed universe or an open one — are not conducive to sustaining life.

Now how in the world can this be? The Big Bang explodes, propelling matter to the far reaches of an expanding universe. But stop. Under Newton’s law of gravity, this mass exerts an attractive force on the fleeing matter. How can these two forces equal each other? Wouldn’t that be quite a strange coincidence and in fact suggest that “something is going on here?” Prior to inflation, cosmologists simply assumed that the first speck of matter at the Big Bang came pre-programmed to result in a flat universe. But who or what would have done the programming?

The horizon problem may be a bit more subtle, but it poses a similar dilemma. During the initial expansion, the Big Bang exploded, rocketing matter and energy to opposite ends of the universe. Because this energy is moving at or near the speed of light there is no way for opposite ends of outer space to have communicated with each other, or to have shared information and mixed. Thus, we would expect to find differences in temperature and matter (or star) density throughout the cosmos. But once again, cosmologists found something they did not want to find: matter density is the same throughout the universe and the temperature is identical (2.728 Kelvin) in all directions. How is this possible?

The flatness problem suggests some force tuned the Big Bang so that the debris hurtling outward would wind up perfectly balanced and form a flat universe. The horizon problem suggests some force, other than the laws of physics, ensured the universe had a uniform appearance and temperature.

Do the flatness and horizon problems show that the God of the Bible exists? No. Do they mean that the intelligent designers are right? No. What they show is that the laws of physics are incomplete and that there is a force at work in creation beyond the mindless, mechanical principles currently found in science’s arsenal.

But most cosmologists will have none of this talk of design, intelligence or purpose. Instead of expanding their theoretical framework to encompass an intelligent-guiding force, they resorted to the inflationary Big Bang. Alan Guth, then a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is credited with coming to the rescue and inventing a mathematical model to avoid the flatness and horizon problems. In simple terms, he imagined that at creation, the size of the universe was much smaller (in fact 50 orders of magnitude smaller) than conceived in the original Big Bang. This new tiny size just so happens to allow information about physical characteristics to be shared across opposite ends of the very early universe. Then, in a remarkable sleight of hand, Guth imagines that the universe inflates by 50 orders of magnitude in a blink of the eye. Why does this inflation have to be so fast?

To dispense with the flatness and horizon problems and for no other reason. Once the primordial seed instantaneously inflated, the thermal equilibrium was locked into the universe, producing what we experience today as a uniform temperature across the cosmos. And even more remarkably, the reason why the universe appears “flat” is because the stupendous inflation flattened any curvature of space. Inflationary cosmologists believe the reason the universe appears flat for the same reason the round earth looks flat to us: if a curved surface is big enough, portions of it will look flat to observers.

Of course this a greatly simplified account of inflation, but the reader may get the point. The inflationary Big Bang is simply a mathematical contrivance to avoid evidence of design in creation. Alan Guth, in his book, The Inflationary Big Bang, himself concedes that the inflationary theory is in fact “contrived.”( p. 238).David Lindley remarks that “with inflation, particle physicists have begun to design theories whose sole purpose is not to solve problem in particle physics but to make cosmologist happy.” (p. 182).   To avoid fine-tuning the conditions at the Big Bang to account for our flat and uniform cosmos, cosmologists have now adopted a new finely tuned force-field that allows for the universe to inflate just so the flatness and uniformity of the cosmos appear to have a natural, materialistic origin, as opposed to being the product of an intelligence.

So where does this leave us? Perhaps one reaction is simply to accept the fact that the job of explaining the origin of the universe is one for cosmologists, and we should simply stay out the way and not bother them as they dream up ever more elaborate theories to hide evidence of design in creation.

What the public does not understand, however, and what scientific materialists are not advertising, is that when they remove mind from creation, they also remove God: materialists want us to be good atheists, as they continue their quest to explain our three-dimensional physical world as the random creation of mindless particles and forces, never mind that they must introduce contrived fields, particles, and equations on the way to their goal. But who’s paying attention anyway? After all, scientists are the leading authority figures on explaining the natural world, and if they say we don’t need God, maybe we don’t.

But another reaction may be that it is inexcusable to concoct a theory just to eliminate God or Mind as an explanation. Modern scientists have for too long forced themselves into a rigid dichotomy that is detrimental to the scientific process. They believe that any concession to God or Mind leads down the path to creationism, intelligent design, or heaven forbid, Genesis. But it does not necessarily have to lead backward to old, faith-based explanations; these new findings of cosmology should instead lead forward to new explanations where the world of science joins with the world of the spirit. Why not just look at the facts and see where an unobstructed, hard, cold view of the facts lead? Maybe the truth is staring us in the face and we, with our fixation our materialism, simply will not see it.