Thanks for clarifying @MStrauss, and great to see you. I’m enjoying your blog. Your series on Adam and Eve was good.
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This is not true (yet?). While I think that alternatives to inflation are not as compelling and elegant as inflation, it’s a disservice to science to rule them out yet. Notably, the abstract you quote does not support your assertion. It said that Planck2018 constraints certain models of inflation, which is very different from ruling out non-inflationary models.
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I was thinking (and I asked him above) that @Patrick was saying that, in general, there is no fine-tuning of the universe, not that he was referring to what the article stated. Though I’m still not sure…
I thought @Patrick meant specifically with the leading class of models at present (plateau potentials) which according to this paper linked above:
There is no fine-tuning issue for the initial conditions in the case of plateau inflation.
where they define ‘fine-tuning’ as:
A lexical warning is also in order before we start. In this section, by “fine-tuned” initial conditions, we mean a set of initial conditions that occupies a tiny fraction of phase space. Of course, this implicitly assumes a measure on phase space.
This also highlights why ‘fine-tuning’ has a very specific meaning in many of these papers but also a very limited meaning. In that we don’t truly know the limits of how much some of these fields, ‘constants,’ etc. can actually change. We can model the ranges that they can be in until physics starts to break but don’t actually know what ranges or values anything can take. And in light of the most recent CMB measurements the authors also note:
From the CMB point of view, by definition, the best model of inflation is therefore the least fine-tuned one.
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@Patrick doesn’t know what he is talking about. He is a retired electrical engineer who has been reading about physics, cosmology since he was a boy. He is able to read and get something out of newly published papers and books, but is certainly not an expert in any of these cutting edge fields. But give him some credit that his BS detector is still sharp.
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Hahaha… You sure garnered a lot of speculation as to “what you meant” here. You have the rest of us fooled for sure. 
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From what I read of this , very unlikely option of a big bang, it all starts with presuming light/possibly other stuff is moving from point a to point b. the bible says light is a fixed thing. light is the field .
it doesn’t move. Something moves within like a pebble in a pond.
they were clumbsy in ignoring other options before the measuring of ligt thing became popular in theese obscure subjects.
first things first. prove light shows timelines.
Where, exactly, does the Bible say this Robert?
Do you know that there’s a parabolic mirror on the moon and you can bounce a laser off of it and time it (in motion) back to the earth?
If light is a field, why does it get dark? Why, when you pass in front of light from the sun, does it make a shadow?
I am not a physicist and don’t have any horses in this race. But to be clear, I also don’t reject inflationary models. It’s possible that big bang and inflation are the best we have right now. I’m perfectly happy if these turn out to be true. Esp. since I have many personal friends who are spending their careers assuming these to be true (and/or who are in search of things like dark matter).
But my worldview also wouldn’t be shaken if they turn out not to be true and some other models turn out to be more correct.
Would yours? Do Christians need big bang to be the only way God could have created the universe since some think it lines up so well with Genesis? (YEC excluded I suppose)
I’m merely skeptical that we have reached the level of confidence in these theories that warrants religious-like fervor in support of them.
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Which they are.
That’s good. Most things about the model are probably not going away given its predictive power and ability to explain various phenomenon. It’s like trying to replace General Relativity where as an example Wikipedia summarizes what must go in to alternative models:
It’s not that these theories can’t change, but much of modern science has gone through the wringer a lot. I’m glad that you don’t fit in to either one of the categories of Christians that I tend to run across a lot when I teach classes (i.e. the Big Bang Theory is wrong because Genesis OR The Big Bang Theory is absolutely correct because Genesis). So to answer your question:
I think its an interesting question as to what could shake my worldview from the discipline of modern Cosmology and when reflecting upon it one time, the bouncing cosmological models actually might impact my worldview a bit (i.e. the universe has expanded and collapsed multiple times and will continue to do so infinitely into the future).
Would you say that there are any scientific theories that should be supported with ‘religious-like fervor?’ By and large, most scientific theories, including the Big Bang theory, have significantly more evidence and predictive power than most religious claims if not nearly all of them.
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I would not put inflation in the same category as general relativity or quantum mechanics, esp. in terms of experimental verification. Would you?
But even with those two theories, something has to be fixed to get them to agree.
Bounces wouldn’t bother me, as long as we don’t assume we know they are infinite. Why couldn’t God have started the bouncing and why couldn’t he stop it any time? An extremedy large, but perhaps not infinite, number of multiverses also wouldn’t bother me.
So I caution on the side of humility and awe of God’s Creation and and err on the slow end before thinking we have things all figured out.
I also would not label those who are skeptical of mainstream scientific theories “deniers.” This has been a very disappointing trend, esp. when its done among fellow Christians.
Genesis says God said LET THERE BE LIGHT. light was first created. no source of light. Same day he divided the light from thye darkness in order to make time.
This is very clear. the authors of genesis see light as the essence of the universe and expect everyone to understand its independent of the sources like the sun. In fact the sun/moon only RULE the times.
or rather interfere in the light field as we would say today.
Your laser thing is not the point. Yes that has a speed. let that is not light but a provacation/pebble in the light field/pond I suggest.
What is light? your bouncing off the mirror a electromagnetic beam they say. Called light.
i say light is not electro/magnetic anything. just electro/magnetic is a pebble in the hidden trie light field.