And we shouldn’t be afraid of developing a child’s critical thinking skills
Who, please, is saying that we should be afraid of developing a child’s critical thinking skills, and in what context?
that idea that inflation creates the entire cosmic web in a trillionth of a picosecond
I’ve no problem with examining that critically, but I think this is an exercise best done by professional theoretical physicists, whose current position appears to me to be that it’s probably right. (Though not that it’s necessarily well described by the words you happened to use.) If you disagree with that, would you like to say what you consider stronger evidence against taking inflation seriously than the rough consensus of theoretical physicists is for taking it seriously?
(For clarity: I am not claiming, nor do I believe, that there is anything like unanimity among theoretical physicists that inflation is correct. Neither do I claim it’s definitely correct. The usual position appears to me to be that it gives a description of the early universe that fits a lot of otherwise puzzling observations, but that in the absence of more direct evidence than we seem likely to get any time soon we can’t upgrade it much beyond “plausible and a reasonable working hypothesis”. Is that what you’re objecting to, or are you objecting to some much stronger claim of certainty and if so who’s making that claim?)
Who is saying otherwise? (This seems rather like a rhetorical technique Tooby and Cosmides accuse Stephen Jay Gould of using: “But I tell you the sun really does rise in the east”.)
Who, please, is saying that we should be afraid of developing a child’s critical thinking skills, and in what context?
I’ve no problem with examining that critically, but I think this is an exercise best done by professional theoretical physicists, whose current position appears to me to be that it’s probably right. (Though not that it’s necessarily well described by the words you happened to use.) If you disagree with that, would you like to say what you consider stronger evidence against taking inflation seriously than the rough consensus of theoretical physicists is for taking it seriously?
(For clarity: I am not claiming, nor do I believe, that there is anything like unanimity among theoretical physicists that inflation is correct. Neither do I claim it’s definitely correct. The usual position appears to me to be that it gives a description of the early universe that fits a lot of otherwise puzzling observations, but that in the absence of more direct evidence than we seem likely to get any time soon we can’t upgrade it much beyond “plausible and a reasonable working hypothesis”. Is that what you’re objecting to, or are you objecting to some much stronger claim of certainty and if so who’s making that claim?)