Doug, you are very gracious. Again, keep in mind that I am an armchair fan of science. So at most, I can pursue topics that fascinate me and perhaps be swayed by arguments and evidence that appear sound. I am relatively new to EU—only a few years or so. Although I have spent around 30 years both learning the Standard Model, much of which never satisfied me, and then learning about all the holes in it.
My first exposure to "plasma cosmology" was Eric Lerner's 1991
THE BIG BANG NEVER HAPPENED. I didn't absorb as much EU that first time out as I did counter arguments to the Big Bang, and Lerner's treatment of social and scientific history swinging in tandem like a pendulum. (Henry Bauer's
DOGMATISM IN SCIENCE AND MEDICINE introduced this approach as science and technology studies.)
Along the way I discovered Tom Van Flandern's
DARK MATTER, MISSING PLANETS AND NEW COMETS. This book introduced an alternative cosmology called the
Meta Model, mostly a "thought experiment," yet still a serious alternative to the Standard Model. Flandern led me to
Halton Arp, and so on. Eventually I came around to more books on EU. Perhaps it "makes sense" to me because I am an electronics repair tech. (Not a degreed EE.) All these writers took the time to explain complex ideas (including the "wrong" ones, thus illuminating why they are wrong) in a way the layman can understand. In his book, Bauer quotes Rutherford as saying, "specialists who really understand their subjects should be able to explain them to their local barmaid." (In short, no "
turbo incabulator.")
The critical aspect of these and other books is to discover the rarely or never heard "other side" of the story. Books selling the Standard Model will not tell you all the things wrong with the Big Bang. Or that the Doppler effect is not the only mechanism that can cause redshifting. Every science book I've read claims the famous Michelson-Morley experiment failed to discover
any sign of an aether—
which is not true, whether or not they messed up on their math.
So to borrow a line from Yoda, "You must unlearn what you have learned." Not all of physics is wrong, but many authors argue that some of the biggest detours occurred during the mid-1800s. Science is supposed to be self-correcting. Hopefully that is what EU is all about.
Now with all that jawboning out of the way...
I cannot comprehend that if the hot corona expands around a dying star to become a red giant how any life or proto-life would survive
Thornhill and Talbot said "brown dwarf" not "red giant." And you must work to overcome the Standard Model life cycle of stars that has been burned into your brain.
Here is page 84. I highly recommend the whole book.
If Saturn were such a brown dwarf with its handful of planets all stacked along the same axis, none of the planets would experience night, as they would be enveloped in the "dim" glow of the plasma. Saturn would lose that plasma glow upon entering the Sun's stronger field. At a time when Birkeland currents were merging, the Solar system would have been a
much more electrically active place—perhaps sufficiently active enough to move the planets about without waiting for the slow and mechanical billiards imagined by gravity-only astronomers. (Keep in mind that EM forces are 39
orders of magnitude, that's 10^39, times stronger than gravity.)
If—big if—mankind were around at the time, they would have been witness to some truly spectacular upheavals that might scar their psyches as badly as the plasma scarred the planets. I've seen it suggested (Talbot?) that prehistoric art before the Great Upheaval was simple and mild—recordings of animal hunts, daily life, and yes even some lewd graffiti—while post Upheaval art shows the spoked wheels in the sky, the squatter man and phantoms wandering the Earth (electric discharge bolts and "dust devils"?).
You don't have to believe
any of this stuff, but in the process of reading you will learn where all the weaknesses (and yes, some strengths) exist in the Standard Model. Just don't expect any Big Bang proponents to point out all the flaws. I've seen the opinion expressed in many books and interviews that "yes, the Big Bang is flawed, but I will stay with it because there are
no alternatives." Such people are either willfully ignorant, or lead very sheltered lives.