His assault comes from an unexpected quarter given that his "pet" theory, requires an honest to gosh diety.
I refer to Intelligent Design (ID).
First Klinghoffer put out this declaration …
https://evolutionnews.org/2022/08/calm- ... -happened/
But the controversy continued so I guess he felt it necessary to put out a second declaration …Calm Down: Yes, the Big Bang Happened
Don Lincoln, a Fermilab scientist, addresses claims (reported on here) that infrared images from the James Webb Space Telescope cast doubt on the veracity of the Big Bang. He links to an article at Evolution News and seems confused as to the general view among intelligent design proponents on the subject. … snip …
The Webb images of ancient galaxies “seem to be far larger and more regularly shaped than what was predicted.” And ID proponents are on board with Eric Lerner’s marginal claim that the “Big Bang Never Happened”? If true (and it’s not), that would be quite surprising in light of the fact that, in philosopher of science Stephen Meyer’s most recent book, Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe, the observation that the universe had a beginning (aka the Big Bang) is given as one of three pillars supporting the case for a transcendent mind at work in nature.
… snip …
let’s all calm down and stop falsely tarring proponents of intelligent design for things we don’t believe and that would go against our most prominently articulated arguments.
https://evolutionnews.org/2022/09/steph ... disproven/
Despite the title, at first I was hopeful that a bit of rationality might prevail as it started out thus …Stephen Meyer: No, the Big Bang Hasn’t Been “Disproven”
But then I was disappointed. He wrote …As soon as I see multiple uses of scare words like “denial,” “disinformation,” and “pseudoscience,” my eyebrow goes up. Today, the mark of genuine disinformation is, often, the repeated, robotic use of the word “disinformation.” A piece at Space.com seems to be competing to see how densely it can sprinkle such terms across a short article.
I totally disagree with his characterization of Lerner's article, for all the reasons I stated above, not of which have been debunked.Keith Cooper writes, “The James Webb Space Telescope never disproved the Big Bang. Here’s how that falsehood spread.” He’s referring to “an article about a pseudoscientific theory that went viral in August, and which mischaracterized quotes from an astrophysicist to create a false narrative that the Big Bang didn’t happen.” … snip … And Cooper is correct that the original story was highly misleading.
But at least this communicator noticed this ...
Indeed. I counted 7 variations in that small portion of Cooper's article. And hysteria is a sign of … what? … PANIC. So Lerner might be right. And the fact that all of mainstream has mobilized to attack Lerner is another sign of that panic. They simply can not let the observations he made about JWST results and Big Bang take root. Because that would threaten their funding. So Klinghoffer continues …But count the number of variations on the phrase “science denial” in just two paragraphs. This is verging on hysteria
Isn’t that interesting? Not a astrophysicist, but another philosopher is being used to resolve this scientific dispute. And what evidence does Klinghoffer offer from this philosopher to prove the JWST data has strengthened the case for a Big Bang and that Lerner and his “pet theory” are “wrong”. Well … nothing, other than linking Meyer. So I guess I have no choice but to listen to what Meyer said.I was much more interested to hear what philosopher of science Stephen Meyer, author of Return of the God Hypothesis, had to say about the same viral story in a conversation with podcaster Frank Turek. The two ask, “Has the Big Bang Been Disproven?”
The answer is no: observations so far from the Webb Space Telescope have strengthened the case for a cosmic beginning, as Meyer shows, not weakened it. He explains why science writer Eric Lerner and his “pet theory” about the Big Bang are wrong. It’s much more persuasive to say so, lucidly and soberly, without trashing other people as “serial deniers” or pushers of “pseudoscience.” I highly recommend Dr. Meyer’s detailed discussion of why, yes, the universe began with a “bang.”
So, first, who is Stephen Meyer? Well, to begin with, Klinghoffer is a “senior fellow” at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture where Meyer is the Director. So you could say Meyer is his boss, which might influence his views, if Meyer attacked Lerner.
Also, beside Meyer having a PhD in the Philosophy of Science, he’s another advocate of ...as Wikipedia puts it … the “pseudoscience of intelligent design.” Indeed, he’s been focused on ID (fighting for it’s acceptance) since before he got the “philosophy” degree back in 1991 ... as long as Lerner has been struggling to promote Plasma Cosmology. The fact both believe in ID might also have influenced Klinghoffer to attack Lerner.
Now interestingly enough, like Lerner, Meyer has had trouble publishing his work in *respected* scientific journals. In fact, in 2005, the National Center for Science Education even called a paper by Meyer on ID that the Proceedings of Biological Society (BSW) had first published then retracted … for not meeting its scientific standards … “pseudoscientific”.
And like Lerner, Meyer has claimed that those who oppose Darwinism are persecuted by the scientific establishment and prevented from publishing their views. He even signed a statement in 2001 titled “A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism” to that effect (much like Lerner and others did in the case plasma cosmology).
And again, like Lerner, Meyer has been the target of serious attacks by scientists, many of whom see themselves as *science communicators*. For example, in 2013, paleontologist Donald Prothero published a highly negative review of Meyer's 2013 book on ID under the title "Stephen Meyer's Fumbling Bumbling Amateur Cambrian Follies". Gareth Cook, a *science communicator*, published an article attacking Meyer's book under the title "Doubting Darwin's Doubt". He called Meyer's book a "masterwork of pseudoscience". Many others did much the same thing.
So given all those similarities in the way the mainstream has treated Meyer, you would think that Meyer would have more understanding and sympathy for Lerner’s situation. But apparently not. Apparently he was willing to through a fellow mainstream science dissenter under the bus just because he perceived that would play well with the mainstream media and possibility make his little movement seem more rational (than it probably is, truth be told). Besides Creation seems to require a God, much like ID does.
Now, on to what Meyer said in the Turek interview, which Klinghoffer linked (https://crossexamined.org/has-the-big-b ... n-c-meyer/) as proof Lerner is wrong. Here's a transcript of the interview: https://crossexamined.org/wp-content/up ... 1-2022.pdf .
The interviewer (Turuk) starts by saying "some people on the web have been saying" about the JWST data disproving the Big Bang, says "Particularly, even the redshift is now somehow disproven." Meyer responds, saying that "is completely incorrect. This is the pet view of one particular astronomer named Lerner." The problem is that Lerner never assumed in his article's analysis of the JWST data that redshift is not an accurate measure of distance like the mainstream claims. In fact, he did his analysis and drew his conclusion that JWST data contradicts the Big Bang Theory BASED ON THAT ASSUMPTION. So now we have to wonder if Meyer even read Lerner's article.
It is true that Lerner said that IF the Big Bang Hypothesis is thrown out, "the Hubble redshift relation would" "need some new physical process to explain the loss of energy as light travels huge distances", but he did not say that the redshift relationship was wrong in the analysis that led to him concluding that the Big Bang didn't happen. He didn't need to make that claim to show inconsistencies between Big Bang and JWST results.
Then after Meyer pontificates about redshift a while, Turuk says "this astronomer by the name of Lerner - I read the article that he wrote about this - he said he could explain the redshift by something called tired light". Problem is that Lerner never once mentioned tired light in his "The Big Band Didn't Happen" article. Not Once. So now we have to wonder if Turuk actually read Lerner's article. And Meyer, clearly not having read the article either, responds to this as if Lerner did say it in the article.
Meyer says "the galaxies that are 13.5 billion years old and as far away as would correspond to that age should have light that they would be moving very fast. And the light coming from them would be what I've coined the term uber redshifted. It shouldn't be redshifted; the light should be really stretched out. And the James Webb is looking for light which is super uber redshifted. That's very stretched out. And the very fact that they have confirmed galaxies of that age shows that they're getting the degree of redshift that you would expect given the distance to them."
That's a description by someone who hasn't a clue what he's really talking about. First, the light from distant galaxies "would be moving very fast"? How fast? Faster than light? Cosmological redshift isn't due to light moving uber fast ... it's due to space expanding. Second, what the heck does he mean by the light "shouldn't be redshifted". Especially when he calls it "super uber redshifted". His explanation is just gobbledegook.
Then he continues ... "Now, Learner's claim that he can explain that degree of redshift through tired light, is a tacit admission that the James Webb Telescope is detecting the degree of redshifted light, or electromagnetic radiation, that would be necessary to confirm the Big Bang model." Again let me point out that Lerner did NOT use the expression "tired light" in the article this joker claims to be discussing. And Lerner ASSUMED in his article's analysis that light redshifts just like the Big Bangers claim. What this again proves is that Meyers did NOT read Lerner's article.
His whole diatribe in fact has NOTHING to do with the actual evidence, citations and logic that Lerner supplied in his article to back up his thesis that the JWST results contradict the Big Bang model. Meyer and Klinghoffer have offered nothing but a strawman, or perhaps more accurately, a red herring, to try and smear Lerner. Furthermore, let me point out that the transcript on Turuk's website mispells Lerner's name over and over and over. It's identifies him as "Learner". And Meyer has to have seen the transcript, so the fact that he didn't make Turuk correct the mistake is one more reason to suspect that Meyer never even bothered to read Lerner's article.
Let me also point out that Meyer's attempt to debunk the idea that tired light doesn't explain redshirt only shows that he's not current with physics and certainly not plasma cosmology. Yes, Lerner mentioned tired light in his 1991 book ... because the was the state of knowledge back then. And yes, there are reasons to question tire light as a mechanism to explain redshift. But Lerner offered tired light as an alternative before those reasons were know and, this is important, bbefore scientists discovered other mechanisms that sap energy from light and could lead to redshift.
The Wolf effect, for example, is a phenomenon that was predicted by Emil Wolf in 1987 and subsequently confirmed in the laboratory by Mark Bocko, David Douglass, and Robert Knox. Wolf and James, in 1996, reported the "“Under certain conditions the changes in the spectrum of light scattered on random media may imitate the Doppler effect, even though the source, the medium and the observer are all at rest with respect to one another." In 1998 and 2000, Wolf and several others suggested that the Wolf Effect might explain discordant redshifts observed in certain quasars.
The late Paul Marmet in 1988 did calculations (http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/hubble/) that indicated a very slight inelastic scattering phenomenon using electromagnetic theory and quantum mechanics could be compatible with observed redshifts He calculated that concentrations of about 10-2 particles per cm^^3 of gas is enough to produce a redshift that would be indistinguishable from the effect resulting from the Doppler shift attributed to the expansion of the universe. That density is less than what's currently thought to be the density of the intergalactic medium (1 atom per cm^^3). Here's another paper Marmet published in 2000: http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/hydrogen/ about that alternative redshift mechanism.
And there are other known mechanisms. In 2005, Ari Brynjolfsson postulated (https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0401420.pdf) a redshift that occurs when a photon enters a hot, sparse electron plasma. And here's a paper (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1306.4407.pdf) from 2013 that describes what seems to be a similar mechanism. It shows that this mechanism could not only explain observed redshifts but eliminate the need for dark matter to explain the redshift of galaxies in the Coma cluster.
The point of all this is that simply debunking tired light because Lerner relied on it 30 years ago when he wrote his first book does not debunk what's in his current article and the new alternative redshift mechanisms. Furthermore, Miller is also apparently unaware that Lerner, in a 2018 peer reviewed paper, “Observations contradict galaxy size and surface brightness predictions that are based on the expanding universe hypothesis”, published ( https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/ ... 85/4951333) in a leading cosmology journal, the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, found that observations of the size and brightness of thousands of galaxies contradict predictions based on the Big Bang expansion hypothesis. He found that none of the published expanding-universe predictions of galaxy-size growth fit the actual data and he found that all of the proposed physical mechanisms for galaxy growth, such as galaxy mergers, also contradict observations. However, the data were closely fit by the contrary hypothesis that the universe is not expanding, and that the redshift of light is caused by some other unknown process. Tired light wasn't mentioned.
Besides, I don't believe Meyer is even qualified to debunk the notion of tired light although I didn't take the time to see if it made any sense.
In any case, after that, Turuk and Meyer return to discussing Meyer's "God Hypothesis" and regurgitating all the previous reasons that have been given for postulating a deity produced the Big Bang. Meyer says "the Big Bang model provides an obvious confirmation of the most important claim in the biblical account, which is that there was a beginning to the universe." And then the two of them get lost in the philosophical weeds, never to return to the topic of Lerner. All in all, Meyer's interview is not a very convincing refutation of the claims Lerner makes in his most current article. Klinghoffer was just blowing smoke, anticipating that few people would even bother to look at what Meyer said.
And one last observation. The one good thing I'll say about Stephen Meyer is that he's not a defender of mainstream thinking on Climate Change. Quite the opposite: https://stream.org/bill-nye-perfect-tal ... h-science/ . But then taking that position doesn't threaten his core issue, intelligent design, does it? Just saying ...