Chapter 5: How Did It All Happen?

There is a striking similarity between the Big Bang theory of the expanding universe and evolutionary theory, in so far as both seek to explain in scientific terms what happened in the aftermath of a specific foundational event; that is the birth of the universe on the one hand and the emergence of life on the other. There is a crucial difference, however, in the sense that while physics specifically includes claims about the Big Bang as an integral part of its theory of how the universe came about, Darwin’s evolutionary theory explains how life developed, not where it came from. However, in both cases the precise nature of the initial event eludes scientific demonstration or manipulation, and exists only as a proposition in the form of words.

If we were to use alternative language to that used in the scientific accounts, we could say that the ‘Big Bang’ idea resembles the something-out-of-nothing illusion beloved by conjurers, but on a vast scale. Or perhaps the pantomime villain is a better example; there’s a puff of smoke, and there he is. In the same vein, claims about primeval soup as the explanation for the origin of life resemble nothing so much as a speculative Macbeth-type witches brew. The point here is that in using such alternative everyday language, nothing is either lost or gained in terms of actual useable knowledge compared to any equally magical but more scientific-sounding assertions about these events advanced by physicists and biologists. Furthermore, and somewhat paradoxically, only the conjuror and the producer of the pantomime or play can provide a verifiable scientific account of what happened, or produce a decent replication.

So the wonderful, elegant, and complex science that has powered modern civilisations for better or worse, in terms of our understanding of the history of the Earth and the animals and people that live upon it, traces back in both cases to foundational states described in forms of words which express a belief, rather than a tried and tested scientific ‘fact’. Unlike a normal scientific hypothesis, claims about infinitely dense particles with no mass, or primeval soups with supposed supra-normal properties, are unsupported by the normal rigours of experimental science and the act of observation. We can call these things inferences caused by necessity rather than observation if we wish, in a “What else could it be?” sort of way; but inability to think of anything better was never strong support for a scientific theory. Or you can call them acts of faith.

However, there are important differences between Big Bang theory and evolutionary theory. Firstly, evolutionary theory does not claim to have explained where life itself originated; merely how it developed once it arrived/occurred. The origin of life itself is not part of the theory of evolution, which is about the species’ development and differentiation. By contrast the Big Bang is clearly seen as part and parcel of ‘expanding universe’ theories. Furthermore, evolutionary theory does less violence to the law of parsimony, sometimes known as Occam’s razor. This law requires that any new scientific theory or idea be judged in terms of how much it requires new or untried concepts in order to sustain it, and the best theory will be the one that calls upon such unknown ideas or presuppositions to the least extent. In terms of Occam’s razor, Darwin’s theory is just about the most parsimonious theory it is possible to imagine for explaining how some form of original life transformed over time into complex living things. By contrast, Big Bang physicists appear to be prepared to build the incomprehensible on the back of the inconceivable as often as appears necessary, and haven’t considered shaving for several decades.

So it is cosmology and particle physics that are the problem. Whilst Darwin’s theory, once we get over the imponderable of where life came from, invokes nothing that openly violates what we might loosely call ‘the laws of nature’ as we can conceive them to be, Big Bang theory starts with an imponderable and then uses that as a basis for an expanding galaxy of ideas that becomes more and more removed from any comprehensible or conceivable reality at each stage. Whilst Darwin ultimately comes down to Earth, cosmology and particle physics go in the opposite direction.

But because of the unthinking and automatic respect with which we treat our physicists and cosmologists, their ideas are seldom challenged from an everyday rationalist perspective, and thereby we concede to them a position from which they are free to postulate whatever they see fit. And so we get the ideas of points of zero volume and infinite mass, dark matter that is invisible but ‘must be there’, dark energy which is similarly illusive of demonstration… all of which are nothing more than unconscious defences of certain initial assumptions about how everything works. In that context, Occam’s razor becomes a serious impediment that is best ignored, and the need for demonstration and replication mere tedious rubrics made up by lesser mortals. Meanwhile, unperceivable, conceptually impossible, and undemonstrable speculation is the real way to conduct the search for truth.

Knowing and thinking

There is a difference between ‘knowing’ lots of things and thinking about things. One marvels at the general knowledge of those amazing people who win on TV shows like Mastermind, who seem to know just about every fact about almost everything. But then one wonders if they could change a tyre on their car, or look at a derailleur gear and instantly see how it works and how to adjust it without having to take it back to the bike shop. Maybe they can. Nonetheless, knowing the ‘facts’ about subatomic particles is one thing; but we all make decisions about what things mean and draw conclusions about prior events from the state of present ones, as part of our everyday lives, and in that sense everyday common sense thinking is the same for scientists as it is for everybody else.

It is clear the facts per se about the nature of the cosmos, in so far as we know what they are, are complex and esoteric to say the least, and understandably the more or less sacred province of highly educated physicists and cosmologists. But the process of making inferences is commonplace, something we all do all the time in much the same way, without training, but with varying degrees of astuteness. The inference that lots of things whizzing outwards might all have come from the same place in some sort of explosion/expansion process is distinctly ordinary. One does not have to be a scientist to arrive at such an undistinguished conclusion. The suggestion is ‘obvious’ although obviousness is not, and never was, a reliable criterion for evaluating the truth of a scientific theory, and does not necessarily mean correct.[1] Any such obvious conclusion does not therefore require some specific manifestation of wisdom on the part of an advanced coterie of select scientists. It’s the very ordinariness of this foundational statement which is so striking. The logic is available to all. Though the ‘facts’ following on from the inferred event are substantially more complex and esoteric, the inference made about origins on the basis of those facts is, in the case in point, commonplace and unremarkable, and derives from everyday, ubiquitous but flawed human reasoning. There is nothing specifically clever about postulating the Big Bang. The difficulty lies in explaining it once you’ve done so.

But as we have seen, commonplace logic, right or wrong, leads to a barrier when taken to its internally logical conclusion in the case of the Big Bang; a barrier beyond which empirical science fails and resorts to the fantastic and inexplicable, and only the possibility of metaphysical speculation remains. Science at present is highly speculative, not to say cavalier, about the birth of the universe, even if not all scientists acknowledge that fact. Statements about the nature of this primary event, notwithstanding the discoveries that come later on, appear to be as much based on a process of common everyday reasoning as on anything else, whilst also failing any test of demonstrability or replicability. However, the value in a scientific theory lies not just in its testability and replicability, but also in its applicability; and who would wish to deny that sometimes our ideas are useful and sometimes totally unhelpful. And sometimes, it appears, completely incomprehensible.

Religious ideas about the birth of the universe and the emergence of life also have many of these obvious but untestable characteristics. It has been noted often by those of a rationalist persuasion how, in the face of scientific discoveries tracing from the ancient Greeks to the present day, the need for God has diminished progressively as things that seemed inexplicable at one time (eclipses, planetary motions, lightning strikes, natural disasters, the weather, etc.) have subsequently and inexorably been explained by science in terms of the ‘laws of nature’. Meanwhile, it is suggested, God has been inching more and more closely towards the back door all the time, because wherever and whenever this happens there is less and less need to postulate a God with magical powers who brings things to pass. So far so good. Furthermore, it is also asserted that these natural laws are the Laws of Physics, the Laws of the Universe, the Laws of Nature, and so forth, and that all the secrets of the universe will eventually yield to the application of these Laws.

That being the case, what such claims lead one to expect is an account of the birth of the universe in precisely those terms; that is, in terms of the natural laws so widely vaunted to explain everything. However, that’s not what we get. At that point, disappointingly, we find the whole positivist[2] edifice scrapped at a stroke. In its place we get the assertion that the birth of the universe was a spontaneous something-out-of-nothing event that required no preconditions, in direct contradiction to all the ‘laws of nature’ which are claimed to be irrefutable and universal, and on the basis of which we refute any God suggestions. One is at least entitled to ask the question, if these so-called ubiquitous rules of the universe can suddenly be scrapped at some point, why can’t they be scrapped somewhere else as well? And why do physicists have the right to arbitrate on when to scrap the laws of nature, decide where they shall be scrapped, and suggest that anyone who wants to junk them somewhere else must be incapable of rational thought, superstitious, and a God-botherer?

It is time then to bring some gritty realism to bear on this issue. In rational terms the explanation for the birth of the universe is totally unsatisfactory, and requires the same suspension of rationality as does belief in God, or in the miracles of the saints. There is no rational or sensory evidence for either. Furthermore, whilst the contents of deductions about the birth of the universe will be very different from the contents of deductions about why your soufflé collapsed, the mental process underlying the attribution of causality will be much the same and subject to the same biases and limitations. The human brain works the way the human brain works, and physicists brains work according the same principles as yours and mine.

How embarrassing

It is important, however, to make it absolutely clear that scepticism about the reality of the Big Bang is not confined to the pages of this book. A number of physicists have already openly declared that there is in fact no clear rational conception as to what the moment of actual creation, at which point the supposed point of zero volume and infinite mass sprang into being, involved. So whilst some physicists unthinkingly treat this suggestion as ‘fact’, others clearly see a problem and admit that the origins of the supposed starting point are basically unknown, and in one case describe the idea as an ‘embarrassment’. These issues will be discussed in more detail in later chapters. But nothing new or radical is being suggested here; it has been said before by some physicists themselves.

However, what is overlooked is the massive implication of shedding doubt on the reality of this foundational event. In terms of simple logic, any set of subsequent statements about an issue, no matter how internally consistent, collapses when the premise on which this edifice is erected is found to be not valid. So statements about how the universe expanded, and what it was like two milliseconds after the Big Bang, and thirty seconds after, and two minutes, and so forth, and how all the elements formed, all rest on the premise that there was a singular starting point with properties which are frankly magical in the light of current knowledge. If this premise is open to some doubt, as it clearly is, then so is everything else that derives from it.

One of the received wisdoms, of course, is that science will always proceed apace, and it’s just a matter of time before we solve problems that at present seem intractable. However, there are some good reasons for believing that the problem of where the universe came from and what it is really like might just be intractable to science in principle.

Why is that?

1 It is nothing more than the orderliness of the retreating planets that leads to the assertion of a common point of origin, and which makes a central ‘big bang’ seem seductively obvious. But current position and direction of travel of an object is by no means a prima facie guide to its point of origin. On the other hand, the positions and movements of the red balls half way through a snooker match give few clues if any as to their original clustering, and in the absence of prior knowledge would lead to no such ‘obvious’ conclusion, even though such a conclusion would be true in that case.

2 See chapter, ‘Positivism’.