Re: Cosmic fingerprints pt. 2

Yesterday, I began a review of Perry Marshall’s Cosmic Fingerprints emails. Today I look at part 2: “Bird Droppings on my Telescope.”

In this email, Marshall defends Big Bang Cosmology (which is nice, compared to some YECs).  He starts with the story of the discovery of the cosmic microwave background, one of the greatest discoveries of the past century.

Unfortunately, Marshall continues speaking.  He grabs a couple interviews with Robert Wilson (co-discoverer of the CMB):

Robert Wilson was asked by journalist Fred Heeren if the Big Bang indicated a creator.

Wilson said, “Certainly there was something that set it all off.  Certainly, if you are religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis.”

Which is likely the good PR thing to say when cornered by an interviewer.  Scientists are known for being a bit sheepish with discussing religion, mainly since people who grant funding might look less favourably on someone who actively attacked the religious (especially forty years ago).

I do have to disagree strongly with Wilson though, a theory of origins that matches with Genesis was well accepted through most of the Roman empire, the following dark ages, and right up until the eighteenth or nineteenth century, and that was simply that the six-day, 6000 years ago story of Genesis was literally true, not a scientific theory based on the evidence pointing to a 13.73 billion year old universe.  It’s also worth pointing out the mutually contradictory creation myths of Genesis chapters 1 and 2.

Finally, I’ll touch on the other interview Marshall mined for:

In an interview, Penzias was asked why there was so much resistance to the Big Bang theory.

He said, “Most physicists would rather attempt to describe the universe in ways which require no explanation. And since science can’t *explain* anything – it can only *describe* things – that’s perfectly sensible.  If you have a universe which has always been there, you don’t explain it, right?

“Somebody asks you, ‘How come all the secretaries in your company are women?’ You can say, ‘Well, it’s always been that way.’  That’s a way of not having to explain it.  So in the same way, theories which don’t require explanation tend to be the ones accepted by science, which is perfectly acceptable and the best way to make science work.”

Except science does explain things.  The majority view of philosophy of science is that science does explain things, the theory of evolution is an explanation, just as much as the big bang theory.  Do new theories pose new questions? Absolutely, but that’s part of the fun of science.  Marshall seems to be attempting to hint at an anti-supernatural bias in science, however, in my opinion the evidence just hasn’t lead there (despite times it could).  Science isn’t inherently naturalistic in its assumptions, merely natural explanations are much more plausible than supernatural ones (due to the apparent overabundance of nature, versus the apparent absense of supernatural stuff).

More posts to come on the fun musings of Perry Marshall.