The Way Forward

It is often said, only half jokingly, that science progresses in three stages:

1. New theories are ignored and ridiculed.
2. Their importance is denied.
3. It is claimed they were accepted all along.

There is more than a grain of truth in the joke. Scientific progress is rarely a smooth or linear process. New ideas often encounter resistance, particularly when they challenge long-established assumptions. In many areas of cosmology, we appear to be somewhere between stages one and two, with the occasional foray into stage three. For how much longer can the importance of Cosmical Electrodynamics continue to be overlooked?

At the very least, it is time for scientists from different disciplines to sit down and compare notes. Plasma physicists, electrical engineers, astronomers, geologists, and space scientists often describe the same phenomena using very different languages and conceptual frameworks. Bridging those disciplines may prove as important as any new discovery.

The following passage appeared on Thunderbolts.info on 6 April 2005.

"As plasma physicists look at astronomy and astronomers look at plasma, the respective languages, cultivated over many decades, can only accentuate the gap in viewpoints. The language of 'plasma cosmology', describing the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets, includes many terms more familiar to electrical engineers than to astronomers: Langmuir sheaths, z-pinches, glow discharges, arc discharges, plasmoids, etc.

"Astronomers have cultivated a different language. Having banished charged plasma from space, they concentrate on the much simpler behaviour of a 'magnetized gas', not the charge. Their equations for the behaviour of plasma are typically those used to describe flowing water and blowing wind, with a modification due to magnetic effects drawn from classical mechanics. Thus, their lexicon reflects their perspective, with words one might expect from a weatherman: winds and jets, bow shocks and shock waves, winds and rains of charged particles, windsocks, etc.

"What NASA scientists call a 'surprising rain of charged particles' in the vicinity of Jupiter's moon Io is interesting and dangerous weather for spacecraft. But in an electric universe the phenomenon means much more than a cosmic weather report. It is a signature of electrical activity that could not fail to produce a continuous stream of surprises for those unaccustomed to the behaviour of electrified plasma."

In 2004, a number of leading scientists, electrical engineers, and independent researchers published an open letter expressing concerns about the direction of modern cosmology. Signed by hundreds of researchers, it questioned several assumptions underlying the Big Bang model and called for a more open scientific debate. In some quarters, it became known as An Open Letter to Closed Minds.

The letter was published in New Scientist on 22 May 2004 and can be viewed here:
http://www.cosmologystatement.org/

Among its principal concerns were the increasing reliance on hypothetical entities within the Big Bang model, the limited consideration given to alternative cosmological ideas, and the influence of the peer review system on the publication of dissenting viewpoints. Many of the signatories were actively engaged in plasma-related research.

"I have always said that the problem is the American Graduate School System... When I qualified the best way to get ahead was to thumb your noses at the old ones... But now you have to do what you are told... In the Graduate School system you have to learn what the professors are teaching you... You get a few places like Harvard and they set the fashion for every place... The road ahead is hammered out."
Sir Fred Hoyle

"I think there is a problem with graduate education. I don't think it teaches students to think or to become independent researchers..."
Jack Sulentic, Observational Astronomer

The relationship between science and authority has long been the subject of debate. Halton Arp, whose own challenges to conventional cosmology brought him into conflict with the astronomical establishment, drew the following comparison:

"This is far from the first time this parallel has been noted. The church, still in Galileo's time, was the ultimate authority on the most important matters. The church hierarchy was handsomely supported by princes and working people, and the lifestyle of the cardinals depended on having people believe their pronouncements were important and profound. Due to complex political, economic, and internal events, the church gradually lost power to those who protested.

"After the ideals of the enlightenment and the heady rise of astronomy and physics, however, we have the present day situation where all authority in natural law has passed to science. In return for important and profound pronouncements on the nature of the universe, academics are supported with high salaries, expensive facilities, travel, prestige, and life time security. They also bestow the power of this institution onto successors of their own choosing."
From chapter 10, Seeing Red, Halton Arp

"We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our knowlegde grows, so does the shore of our ignorance."
John Archibald Wheeler

"...the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being."
Carl Jung

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
Max Planck

The dismissal of new ideas — however well reasoned or firmly grounded in observation — is not a new phenomenon. Thomas Kuhn documented numerous examples throughout the history of science in his landmark work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, showing that major advances are often resisted before they are accepted.

More recently, Chris Reeve has explored the growing tendency to dismiss unconventional ideas by labelling them as conspiracy theories, often before the evidence itself has been seriously examined.

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
Max Planck