In a discussion over at ACG, Louis Marmet recently posted this 2022 paper by the cosmologist James Peebles. It is, in essence, another apologia for the current mess in theoretical cosmology offered by one of the prominent purveyors of that mess. The paper is a hot cauldron of disingenuous argumentation based on the usual mathematicist predilection for circular logic that always begins with the premise that the standard model is correct only to arrive at the same conclusion.

Rather than sort through all of the disingenuous arguments presented, I want to focus on a peculiarly blatant factual misrepresentation repeated numerous times throughout the paper. It is this falsehood that the paper’s strained defense of ΛCDM (against the barrage of anomalies besetting the model) relies on:

To reduce the chance of misunderstanding I emphasize that the empirical case that the ΛCDM theory is a good approximation to reality remains compelling. (…)

… the tests have persuasively established that the ΛCDM theory is a good approximation to reality that likely requires refinement. (…)

… the ΛCDM universe has been shown to look a lot like what is observed. (…)

,,, we have a compelling case that the ΛCDM theory is a useful approximation to reality… (…)

… many well-checked tests show that the ΛCDM universe looks much (like) our universe.

Apparently the strategy is the old, repeat the lie often enough and somebody might believe it. The facts of the matter are incontrovertible though. There is no empirical evidence supporting the existence of any of the ΛCDM model’s defining features. The Cosmos we directly observe does not contain any of the following elements:

• A singularity
• A Big Bang event
• An Inflation event
• Expanding spacetime
• Dark Matter
• Dark Energy

Taken together, those are the defining elements of the ΛCDM model. None of them appear in the Cosmos we observe. There is not even a faint family resemblance between the ΛCDM model and the Cosmos we observe. Any claim to the contrary is simply a falsehood.

So how do cosmologists like Peebles wind up convincing themselves that their model universe looks like reality? Obviously empiricism has nothing to do with the matter. It is solely a matter of belief. Modern cosmology is simply a cult of belief. The belief system can be reduced to the following propositions:

• Mathematics underlies and determines the nature of physical reality. (Mathematicism)
• The assumptions of the FLRW model that underlies ΛCDM are axiomatically true and therefore the expanding universe of ΛCDM is axiomatically true.
• Any physical elements that ΛCDM requires physical reality to possess in order to reconcile the model with observations must exist because the model is correct.

To be fair to Peebles here, he does admit that “... the extreme simplicity of the dark sector of the standard ΛCDM cosmology seems unlikely to be better than a crude approximation to reality…“, but that’s a pretty tepid comment considering the “dark sector” (dark matter & dark energy) of the model constitutes 95% of the model’s matter-energy content, while comprising 0% of empirical reality’s matter-energy content. It’s like saying Ptolemy’s epicycles are a crude approximation of physical reality. They are, but that is beside the point.

Both crude approximations are necessary because the underlying models (geocentrism, the expanding universe) are inaccurate representations of physical reality. The crude approximations are necessary because the foundational assumptions of both models are fundamentally wrong.

The standard model of cosmology is a crude approximation of the Cosmos in the same way that Ptolemy’s geocentric cosmology was. The Cosmos is not an “expanding universe” and the Earth is not at its center. It does not matter that cosmologists choose to believe the former but reject the latter. There is no direct empirical evidence to support their belief and the model based on it is palpably nonsensical, being entirely composed of elements (both entities and events) that do not exist in physical reality.

Science is not supposed to be the study of belief systems, it is by definition restricted to the study of physical reality. Modern cosmology as currently practiced is a belief system, not a science. Physical reality bears no resemblance to the standard model of cosmology and vice versa. ΛCDM is an abject scientific failure and it desperately needs to be relegated to the dust bin of history if cosmology is to ever become a real science rather than a playground for self-deluded mathematicists.