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Martin Brown · 20-02-2009, 11:27 AM posted to uk.rec.gardening

wrote:
In article ,
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:
In message , Christina Websell
writes
Well, given that most current cosmology would be rejected from a
fiction competition on the grounds of insufficient plausibility,
I am disinclined to criticise anyone for choosing an arbitrarily
different figure. I am not inclined to believe him, either, of
course.

This is beautiful. I'm going to send it to my German friend, she thinks she
understands English. Until she saw this ;-)
LOL

The way I put the sentiment is that any sufficiently advanced physics is
indistinguishable from nonsense. (Tip of the hat to Sir Arthur.)

Yes :-) Actually, that's not the thing that annoys me most about the
cosmologists - it's the way that all their evidence depends on a very
complicated analysis of the data, which can only be done by assuming
their hypothesis! It's tortoises all the way down ....

Turtles...

Not quite. We are on the edge of a golden observational age where the
newest telescopes with high resolution and a wide range of wavelengths
will be able to contain theorists wilder flights of fancy.

Standard candles that can be seen at great distances are pretty well
understood these days. And lots of amateurs keep regular watch.

We have damn-all direct evidence of general relativity at high space-
time stresses,

Actually we do have some pretty good examples in the millisecond pulsars
for instance. Shortly after the first discovery of a binary ms pulsar an
error was found in the FORTRAN converter of the early VSOP computer
algebra generated planetary ephemeris thanks to a systematic error in
the GR predicted delay observed when the signals passed near to Jupiter.
The spin down rate matches the GR predictions very nicely.

or even that the red shift is due to recession, and

We don't know this for certain (but it is likely to be true for the vast
majority of normal light emitting stars), but for some extremely compact
objects some of the redshift could come from photons having to climb out
of a very deep gravitational potential well. But on a galactic scale
such objects seem rather unlikely except near the central black hole.

And we do see a picket fence of intervening Lyman alpha absorbtion lines
in the continuum of allegedly distant sources at high redshift.

there are alternative hypotheses that are mathematically consistent
and compatible with known physics. Yes, they're probably wrong, but
that doesn't prove the current hypotheses are right.

Indeed. But the evidence for a Big Bang cosmology is pretty compelling.
There are very few die hard Steady Staters remaining these days.

Regards,
Martin Brown