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Jose B. Almeida wrote:

The near-final version of the program for the 1st Crisis in Cosmology
Conference, CCC-I is now downloadable from
http://www.cosmology.info/2005conference/program.htm

Comments are welcome.

Yes, I have some comments and questions, some to the paper
authors and some to big bang cosmologists.

In the brief titled "The insignificance of current cosmology"
by M Disney it states: "I compare the number of truly
independent measurements that have been made,
and which are relevant to current cosmology,
with the number of free parameters
available to the theory. The difference between
these numbers is controversial, but
is certainly less than 5, and may be as
low as 1. In either case it can be argued
that there is little statistical significance attached
to the good fits which impress conventional
cosmologists. I go on to show that
this same worrying situation has existed
throughout the modern era of cosmology,
as the number of free parameters has expanded
to accommodate the new data. This
expands and updates my ~T The Case against
cosmology~T[General Relativity and Gravitation,
32, 1125, 2000. astro-ph 009020]

Certainly as a reader of popular articles it
seems to me that this is the case. No new predictions
are made outside the previously observed range of
phenomena. Whenever data extends the range of
knowledge, new fixes are applied such as inflation,
dark amtter, acceleration etc. This is the mark of
curve fitting, not of a valid and useful theory.
Therefore I would be interested to see definite
statements by a big bang cosmologists about how
many parameters they use altogether and how many
phenomena this fits, and why each parameter was
introduced.

Examples of good (,aths and) science in this regard
are Euclid and Relativity. Here, the axioms are
all made very clear and the logic that connects them,
and the results that are interesting and even sometimes
surprising.

Another paper is titled "Falsification of the
expanding Universe" by T. Andrews. It states:

"Based on a Fourier analysis of the light
curve at a supernova, the Hubble redshift of
the Fourier harmonic frequencies is shown
to broaden the light curve at the observer
by a factor of (1+z). Since this broadening
spreads the total luminosity over a longer
time period, the apparent luminosity at the
observer is decreased by the same factor.
This effect accounts quantitatively for the
anomalous dimming of supernovae. On the
other hand, no anomalous dimming occurs
for galaxies since the luminosity of galaxies
remain nearly constant over time periods
much longer than the light travel time from
the galaxies."

I don't see why it matters how long a supernova
lasts and how long a galaxy lasts. The light
arriving now all left at some time and the
effect is the same - the light doesn't know
about the subsequent few billion years does it?

Am I missing the point or is this really bad logic?
I do think that there ought to be a crisis in
cosmology, but it should be based on clear
thinking.

Ray Tomes
http://ray.tomes.biz