Pierre St Clair - Cosmology On Trial: Cracking The Cosmic Code

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Smashwords Edition

TORCHLIGHT SCIENCE

San Diego, California

Copyright Pierre St. Clair 2011-14

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in anyform or by any means including information storage and retrievalsystems, except in the case of brief quotations, without writtenpermission from the author.

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What is right is not always popular, and what ispopular
is not always right Albert Einstein

To all the men and women who fought for the truthand
to those who are fighting for the truth today

In the course of his dissertation, St. Clairtakes on much of modern science and its concomitant contemporaryphilosophy, showing where they are right, but, more importantly,where they are wrong. His approach is balanced, enabling theattentive reader to walk away with a true education.
S. J. Rosen New York

This book simply makes the very strong pointthat our cosmology of yesteryear was not based on solid evidence,and our cosmology of today isn't either. V. DiCara Japan

An incredibly well researched book. Theauthor has certainly given one plenty of scope to questionpreviously taught theories showing clearly that science is anongoing changing subject, fraught with those anxious to prove theirlatest theories, even with very little evidence to back them.
G. A. du Buisson (Mrs.) South Africa

If you are interested in coming to grips withjust what science knows and does not know about the universe thenthis book is for you. A. Brennan Sydney

A timely reminder that the modern sense ofskepticism engendered by the physical sciences is best directedtowards the sciences themselves. S. Sen India

The true beauty of this book is its eleganceand simplicity, which is what physicists look for in theirequations. J. Rotman San Diego

Scientific progress and complacency go illtogether, and St Clair has done a superb job in actually advancingthe cause of real science. M. Lyons Texas

A good job of dismantling the modernscientific accounts of the origin of the universe. Well written. M.Cremo Los Angeles

A solid and broad foundation for objectivediscussion, wherever we stand.
David H. Aycrigg New Zealand

When I was a kid I asked my mother, Wheredid I come from? She tried to explain how a man and woman havesex. It sounded really strange.

Why would anybody do that? I asked. Forparents its a difficult question to answer. Its easy tounderstand from an adult perspective yet incomprehensible from achilds perspective. They either accept it as its told, or thinkit sounds crazy.

Children are so curious. Soon after, they askabout creation in a broader sense. Where does everything comefrom? This question is given an effortless answer: Everythingevolved over a long time. Or, Everything comes from God.

Despite best intentions, parents andreligious leaders often fail to answer important questions. Manykids are left unconvinced.

As teenagers we question the answers. We wantto know why bad things happen to good people, or why good thingshappen to bad people. During war, mothers on both sides pray to Godthat their sons will come home. On both sides sons dontreturn.

Young people think for themselves. My sisterdidnt buy that we came from God. She became an atheist. I didntbuy it either. I thought both atheists and theists were fanaticssince there is no evidence either way, so I became agnostic.

I had real questions about the meaning oflife. Why are we all here and whats the purpose of everything? Tosatisfy my intellectual and trustworthy inclinations I neededcomprehensive answers.

In 1980 I was fascinated by the Cosmosseries on TV. The renowned American astronomer Carl Sagan took uson a journey through the universe to discover its secrets. I likedhim because he was reasonable, logical, and confident. Hisexplanations were systematic, plausible, and provable. Thats howhe portrayed the modern scientific understanding of theuniverse.

My visit to London in April, 2011, was aturning point in my search for answers. I was staying with friends,who, in the best tradition of British hospitality, offered tea andpleasant conversation on arrival. Seeing I was tired, they showedme where I could rest after a long flight.

The room had a dark wooden shelf running theentire height and length of the wall filled with books; a veritablelibrary. On a whim, I looked over the titles. One title caught myattention: The Goldilocks Enigma.

Perhaps the word enigma spoke to my ownquest for answers. As I browsed through the pages, the author,British physicist Dr. Paul Davies, revealed to readers an issuethat has baffled cosmologists since the 1960s.

Science has discovered that the universe isso finely-tuned in every detail that even the slightest adjustmentsin the laws of nature would mean that life as we know it couldnever have arisen. In other words, everything in the cosmos isjust right to support life; similar to what Goldilocks discoveredat the house of the three bears.

Wow! Why is our universe so preciselytailor-made for life to emerge? I stayed up most of the nightreading. My desire to know was re-ignited. I had a renewedappreciation for the power of science to provide insights andexplanations. My thoughts returned to my own adventure to unravelthe mysteries of life. I was excited.

My first inclination was to watch theCosmos series again. I got the DVDs and embarked on a secondjourney through time and space with Professor Sagan. After readingThe Goldilocks Enigma and watching Cosmos, a lot ofquestions arose.

I embarked on a journey to have a good lookat the scientific data explaining reality and the origin of theuniverse. Finding illogical and outlandish assertions in everycreation account I studied, I needed to get real facts.

Every civilization and culture since timeimmemorial has a creation story. Curiously, we see them all asmyths except our own. Ideas about who we are and where we comefrom are important. They influence our actions. We use ourunderstanding of the past to make decisions about the present tocreate the future we desire tomorrow.

Ancient cultures always believed theircreation story to be correct, and we are equally confident that ourscientific story is the most correct. In every tradition, my ownbelief system always sounds best.

Today we have access to all the creationstories that came before us. The general public likes storieswith large brush strokes and bold characters. The scientificcreation account taught at schools and colleges is also a story astory based on science but a story nonetheless.

Most physicists readily admit that what weknow today is likely to be revised significantly in the future.Society, however, doesnt thrive on uncertainty. When thescientific creation account is told in the form of a narrative, orstory, it filters down to schools and the general public as aconcrete, coherent plot. Most, if not all, of the uncertainty isremoved. Thus, the creation account is presented as facts to belearned, rather than ideas to be explored.