Pro-life protestors picket NSW parliament over abortion bill

Christian leaders and human rights advocates have slammed as “deeply troubling” and “barbaric” a bill radically decriminalising abortion in NSW which will be introduced to parliament this week.

Coalition MPs will be given a conscience vote on the bill while NSW Premier Glady Berejiklian said she will support it. If passed, the bill announced on 28 July by Independent MP for Sydney, Alex Greenwich, would be among the world’s most extreme.

It would allow for abortion on request for women up to 22 weeks gestation. After 22 weeks, the opinions of two doctors are required that the abortion should be performed, upon consideration of “all medical circumstances” and “current and future” physical, psychological and social circumstances.

There is no requirement for a cooling-off period or counselling, and health practitioners with a conscientious objection would need to refer the person or transfer their care to someone who will perform the termination. The bill was developed by a working group including the Nationals’ Trevor Khan and Labor’s Penny Sharpe and Jo Haylen, with the support of the state’s health minister Brad Hazzard.

“New attempts to make abortion even more widely available in NSW are deeply troubling,” said Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP.

“The measure of a society is how it protects its most vulnerable, be they unborn children, their mothers who are too often pressured emotionally, financially and even physically to choose against the life of their child, or the sick and frail elderly.”

Rather than pursuing laws that will lead to more abortions, there should be investment in ways to support pregnant women who feel they have no other choice, he said.

Archbishop Fisher urged all Catholics to rally against the proposed law, “and, at the same time, recommit ourselves to reaching out with prayer and practical support for women in crisis”.

He encouraged Catholics to contact their local state MP, given the bill is to be tabled this week, urging them to vote against it.

CEO of NSW Right to Life Dr Rachel Carling said that in Victoria where similar legislation has been in place for about a decade, the ‘safeguard’ of two medical opinions was easily circumvented.

“Sometimes the required sign-off is from two doctors in the same abortion clinic,” she said.

It was concerning that the bill has no mention of a woman’s consent, she added, as women facing an unplanned pregnancy are often vulnerable to coercion from others, from subtle to extreme forms, to abort their child.

“Make no mistake, this is an abortion-to-birth bill and in practice this legislation will be abortion on demand.”

“We don’t believe in criminalising women but this legislation will add to a culture of devaluing motherhood and increases the risk of women being taking advantage of when they are at their most vulnerable,” Dr Carling said.

The NSW branch of the Australian Medical Association has given its support to the bill, saying it believes the proposed law will ensure access to appropriate care.

NSW director of the Australian Christian Lobby Kieran Jackson said that it was unfortunate that safeguards and support options for women such as cooling off periods and counselling are not being considered in the bill.

In allowing abortion up until birth the bill is both “barbaric and extreme” he said in a statement.

“There are significant numbers of doctors and nurses across the state who want nothing to do with abortion because they know what is involved,” he said in a statement.

Crowds expected at rally

The Australian bishops’ spokesperson for life Bishop Richard Umbers said that there is no issue more important in our society today than the sanctity of every human life.

He encouraged Sydneysiders to attend a rally for life outside Parliament House on Thursday 1 August from 9.30am.

“This is a critical moment for our country and I encourage every man and woman to take this opportunity to attend the rally at Parliament House in Sydney this Thursday,” he said.

“These politicians are claiming to advocate for modernising the law, but this proposed legislation is out of step with the science that supports the humanity of the unborn.”

ACL’s spokesperson for women and children, Wendy Francis, said that women experiencing an unexpected or unwanted pregnancy should be treated with “great respect and sensitivity”.

“[They should be] given true choices that promote the best interests of mother and child,” she said.

“Choosing abortion in the absence of other support is not a free choice.”

Steven Buhagiar: Three things we can do to fight the NSW abortion bill right now

• Sydney bishop slams ALP abortion policy

• Pope: Abortion never the answer

Pope Francis: Free women from the slavery of prostitution

        

Pope Francis contributes the preface to a new book on human trafficking, entitled "Women crucified. The shame of human trafficking as told from the street".

By Vatican News


The original title of the book in Italian is “Donne crocifisse. La vergogna della tratta raccontata dalla strada”, by Fr Aldo Buonaiuto, a priest of the Pope John XXIII Community.

Mercy Friday visit

In the preface, Pope Francis recalls one of his Mercy Friday visits to a house run by the Pope John XXIII Community for victims of human trafficking. “I did not think I would find such humiliated, afflicted and suffering women there”, writes the Pope. “Truly, women crucified”.
Pope Francis describes listening to “the moving and very human stories of these unfortunate women, some of them with their child in their arms”. Afterwards, he says he felt the need to “ask forgiveness for the real tortures they had to endure because of their clients, many of whom call themselves Christian”.

Rescue and rehabilitation

“A person can never be offered for sale”, writes the Pope. He goes on to praise what he calls “the precious and courageous work of rescue and rehabilitation” conducted by the author, Fr Aldo Buonaiuto, over the years.
The Pope also expresses his awareness of the dangers this work involves, including possible retaliations by crime syndicates for which these women represent “an inexhaustible source of illegal and shameful profit”.
Pope Francis says he hopes this book will be widely read. If we are to “combat the exploitation and humiliation of human lives effectively”, writes the Pope, we need to tell “the stories behind the shocking numbers” of people trafficked.

Prostitution and slavery

“Corruption is a disease that does not stop on its own”, he continues. “We need to raise awareness individually and collectively”, in the Church as well.
Pope Francis goes on to affirm that: “any form of prostitution is a reduction into slavery, a criminal act, a disgusting vice that confuses love-making with venting one's instincts by torturing a defenceless woman”.
Prostitution, writes Pope Francis, is “a wound to the collective consciousness”. He describes as “pathological” the idea that a woman can be exploited like a commodity to be used and thrown away. Prostitution is “a disease of humanity”, he adds, “a wrong way of thinking about society”. Freeing these slaves, says Pope Francis, “is a gesture of mercy, a duty for all people of good will”.
“Individuals and institutions cannot remain indifferent before their cry of pain”, concludes the Pope. “No one should turn away or wash their hands of the innocent blood that is shed on the roads of the world”.


https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-07/pope-francis-book-preface-prostitution-is-slavery.html

Pope at Angelus: the Our Father is the synthesis of every prayer

At the Angelus, Pope Francis reflects on the Our Father, “one of the most precious gifts” Jesus has left us.

By Christopher Wells


In his reflection on Sunday’s Gospel, Pope Francis said that the disciples wanted “to experience the same ‘quality’” of prayer was present in Jesus’ relationship with the Father. “They could see that prayer was an essential dimension in the life of their Master,” he said, noting that “each of His important actions was characterized by extended periods of prayer.” They recognized, too, that Jesus "did not pray like the other masters of the time”; rather, “His prayer is an intimate link with the Father.”

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, the Pope said, the Lord did not simply “give an abstract definition of prayer, or teach an effective technique for praying in order to ‘obtain’ something.” Instead, Jesus shared with them His own experience of prayer, “putting them directly in contact with the Father, and arousing in them a longing for a personal relationship with Him.”

This, Pope Francis said, “is the novelty of Christian prayer: It is a dialogue between people who love one another, a dialogue based on trust, sustained by listening, and open to the commitment to solidarity.”




The prayer Jesus taught them, the Our Father, “is one of the most precious gifts left to us by the divine Master during His earthly mission,” the Pope said. With this prayer, Jesus teaches us “to enter into the Fatherhood of God, and shows us the way to enter into prayerful and direct dialogue with Him, through the way of filial trust.” The Our Father, he said, “is the synthesis of every prayer, and we always address it to the Father in communion with our brothers and sisters.”




https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-07/pope-at-angleus-the-our-father-is-the-synthesis-of-every-prayer.html

Those Confounding Confucius Institutes

Sydney University’s descent into a very dark ignorance

 

Part Two:

Those Confounding Confucius Institutes

 

 

 

“Over 400 Chinese government-backed Confucius Institutes are making an insidious attempt to restrict academic freedom by silencing debate on human rights and other sensitive issues, and whitewash its atrocious human rights records in Tibet and China”.

 

 

 

The University of Sydney’s wilful abandonment of all past wisdom, love and truth, etc., in its grand project of utter folly, ‘Unlearn’, was the subject matter of Part One:

https://www.academia.edu/34776797/Sydney_University_s_descent_into_a_very_dark_ignorance That University has, as do many others, a Confucius Institute. It is not ‘Turning Japanese’, as the song goes, but Turning Chinese – and being dictated to by a crazy, authoritarian Beijing.

This is all quite fitting, of course, as part of its reckless descent into a dark, slavish ignorance.

 

As we read at: https://studentsforafreetibet.org/our-work/say-no-to-confucius-institutes/

 

Confucius Institute threatens academic freedom and free speech. It is controlled by the Chinese Government, and a central part of its soft power plan to improve the global view of China’s authoritarian system. Confucius Institutes aim to censor and silence discussions on important political and human rights issues like Tibet, East Turkestan, Taiwan, Falun Gong and Tiananmen Square.

What are Confucius Institutes?

Confucius Institutes are educational programs backed by China’s Ministry of Education partnerships in educational institutions outside China. Their stated aim is to promote Chinese language and culture in our schools and universities.

 

What is the threat of the Confucius Institutes?

Chinese government censorship and propaganda on topics such as Tibet, Taiwan and Tiananmen are reaching our students in high schools and universities all over the world.

 

The truth about the Confucius Institutes is that they are China’s soft power push inside our schools.

Over 400 Chinese government-backed Confucius Institutes are making an insidious attempt to restrict academic freedom by silencing debate on human rights and other sensitive issues, and whitewash its atrocious human rights records in Tibet and China.

 

What can I do?

Students, academics, parents, politicians and people of conscience around the around the world have already spoken up. Join them and take action: Say No to China’s Confucius Institutes! ….

 

 

And Alexander Dukalskis has written tellingly on the Confucius Institutes:

http://www.democraticaudit.com/2018/01/04/the-chinese-communist-party-has-growing-sway-in-western-universities/

 

The Chinese Communist Party has growing sway in Western universities

 

In recent years, China has fostered academic links with Western universities by funding Confucius Institutes and sending its students to study abroad.

As the recent uproar over the decision of Cambridge University Press to censor a list of journal articles for the Chinese market has highlighted, it also exerts growing influence in academic publishing. Alexander Dukalskis (University College Dublin) argues that the so-called ‘1% argument’ for censorship is disingenuous, and Confucius Institute activity should be strictly restricted to language instruction. Students and academics must be able to scrutinise China freely.

….

 

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) real and potential influence over higher education outside its borders came to the public’s attention last month when The Economist featured CCP “sharp power” influence – including in higher education – on its cover. Its briefing article drew its terminology from a report by the US-based National Endowment for Democracy. The Woodrow Wilson Center published a detailed report about the CCP’s effort to curry political influence abroad, including in academia. Observers are increasingly paying attention to CCP influence in areas of publishing, student exchange, classroom instruction, and research.

I have a special interest in these topics as the author of a book and academic articles about how authoritarian governments control public discourse domestically. The CCP’s export of some of these practices is concerning. I purposely use the descriptor “CCP” because in China the state is subordinate to the party. So when we talk about the Chinese state or Chinese government, what we are really talking about is the CCP.

In August, Cambridge University Press (CUP) acceded to a request by China’s import agency to censor a list of articles from its journal China Quarterly. CUP initially complied until an open letter by the editor of the journal caught the attention of academics and journalists, who then led an outcry on social media. CUP eventually agreed to not pre-emptively censor its articles, but many were startled by how quickly and easily such a prestigious press agreed to censor on behalf of an authoritarian government.

The rationale, of course, is that CUP and other presses like it wish to protect access to the Chinese market. They argue that if they censor a small portion of their offerings, then the vast majority can be accessed in China, thereby salvaging links between foreign and Chinese academics. This is the 1% argument: only 1% is censored but 99% can be accessed, so really this is not such a big problem.

This is disingenuous, for two reasons. First, it ignores that censorship is even more insidious and powerful when people do not know they are subject to it. By selectively pruning offerings for the Chinese market, presses lead readers to believe that the post-censorship catalogue represents the full picture of foreign perspectives on China.  Editing out so-called “sensitive” topics like the Tiananmen Square repression of 1989, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and studies of Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan gives the false impression that the CCP view on these issues is the only legitimate one and that foreign academia agrees.

Second, the 1% argument obscures the likely financial motives behind such censorship decisions.  In CUP’s case the CCP threatened to halt the press’ best-selling English language curriculum.  SpringerNature now not only censors some of its offerings in the journals International Politics and the Journal of Chinese Political Science but has also signed a letter of intent with the People’s Publishing House apparently to publish propagandistic works by CCP leader Xi Jinping.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that financial motives play a major role in these sorts of decisions.

Of course publishing is not the only higher education target of the CCP. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese students study abroad each year, which is a source of funds for universities in the West. In my admittedly anecdotal and limited experience, these students are most often a joy to work with because they are smart, curious and have interesting perspectives.

However, they are also subject to surveillance and mobilisation by the officially-sponsored Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA). Western universities have been mostly silent about the CSSA, which is understandable. The CSSA presents itself as a means of helping Chinese students settle in abroad, so university leaders may feel there is little they can do.  However, some troubling examples suggest that it also plays a more assertive role in policing public discourse. This includes instances of policing what lecturers say in the classroom.

Indeed, one function of the CCP’s strategy to control public discourse about China in foreign universities is precisely to influence classroom instruction. Hundreds of Confucius Institutes teach Chinese language and culture at Western universities and schools.

Confucius Institutes present themselves as politically innocuous, but it does not take long for instruction in Chinese “culture” to morph into China “studies”, with all the off-limits topics that this implies for the CCP. It is worth remembering that the parent institution of Confucius Institutes is Hanban, which is a department of the Chinese Ministry of Education, itself ultimately under the purview of the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department. Indeed, high-level CCP officials have often been quite blunt about the Confucius Institutes being a part of the party’s foreign propaganda effort.

Here again, part of the motivation for welcoming Confucius Institutes on campus in the first place is financial. Typically Confucius Institutes come with financial subsidies from Hanban (and thus ultimately the CCP). Additionally, university administrators may see the prospect of tighter links with the CCP as facilitating the recruitment of fee-paying Chinese students.  The upshot is that universities outsource their Chinese language instruction while Confucius Institute officials sometimes get a seat at the table in discussions about the curriculum in which those language or culture offerings are embedded.

The CCP also attempts to sway the tenor of research about China. Projects like the Institute for China-America Studies or the CCP-linked endowed professorship in China Studies at Johns Hopkins University are prominent examples. The overall aim is to influence the way that China is researched, discussed, and presented.

Ultimately, what is to be done? First, leaders of universities and publishing houses need to firmly and publicly stand up for academic freedom. They should say early, often and publicly that the university places free inquiry at the centre of its engagement with China. If this offends CCP partners, then so be it.

Second, universities should re-evaluate their relationships with Confucius Institutes, particularly given the CCP’s more aggressive turn under Xi Jinping. Confucius Institute contracts sometimes have clauses that call for re-evaluation every so often and universities should take advantage of these opportunities. Ideally, universities would use such clauses to terminate their relationships with CIs and CI-affiliated “research” institutes. 

Short of that, they could press for terms relating to academic freedom to be included and for the activities of CIs to be strictly restricted to language instruction.

Third, individual academics should consider boycotting peer review and submission for presses that censor their catalogues for the Chinese market. Publishing houses rely on the mostly free labour of academics to generate their products. Scholars therefore have some leverage to influence the situation. In a petition that is still open, more than 1,000 have already signed up to boycott reviewing for publications that censor their content for the CCP.

It is incumbent on university leaders, publishing houses, individual academics, and the general public to preserve free inquiry when it comes to China. This is of pressing importance because as a rising economic and military power, China will only play a more important role in the world. It is up to all of us to ensure that this role can be scrutinised freely and fairly. ….

 

Pope Francis: Judge your own heart first – not that of those in need

By Hannah Brockhaus

Vatican City, Jul 14, 2019 / 05:36 am (CNA).- Helping a person in need requires compassion toward their situation, Pope Francis said Sunday, encouraging Catholics to think first about their own hardness of heart, not the sins of others.

“If you go down the street and see a homeless man lying there and you pass by without looking at him, or you think: ‘Eh, the effect of wine. He’s a drunk,’ do not ask yourself if that man is drunk, ask yourself if your heart has hardened, if your heart has become ice,” the pope said July 14.
The true “face of love,” he continued, is “mercy towards a human life in need. This is how one becomes a true disciple of Jesus.”

In his Sunday Angelus address, Pope Francis reflected on the parable of the Good Samaritan, which he called “one of the most beautiful parables of the Gospel.”
“This parable has become paradigmatic of the Christian life. It has become the model of how a Christian must act,” he said.
According to Pope Francis, the parable shows that having compassion is key. “If you do not feel pity before a needy person, if your heart is not moved, then something is wrong,” he warned. “Be careful.”

Quoting the Gospel of Luke, Francis said: “‘Be merciful, as your Father is merciful.’ God, our Father, is merciful, because he has compassion; he is capable of having this compassion, of approaching our pain, our sin, our vices, our miseries.”

The pope noted a detail of the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is that the Samaritan was considered an unbeliever. Jesus uses a man of no faith as a model, he said, because this man, in “loving his brother as himself, shows that he loves God with all his heart and with all his strength – the God he did not know!”

“May the Virgin Mary,” Francis prayed, “help us to understand and above all to live more and more the unbreakable bond that exists between love for God our Father and concrete and generous love for our brothers, and give us the grace to have compassion and grow in compassion.”

After the Angelus, the pope reiterated his desire to be close to the Venezuelan people, who he said are facing trials in the continued crisis in the country.
“We pray the Lord will inspire and enlighten the parties involved, so that they can, as soon as possible, reach an agreement that puts an end to the suffering of the people for the good of the country and the entire region,” he said.

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-francis-judge-your-own-heart-first---not-that-of-those-in-need-89254

Big Bang’ really more of a fizzer?

 

 

“These "shouldn't exist" – a supermassive black hole, an iron-poor star,

and a dusty galaxy – but they do”.

 Bob Enyart

 

Experience should teach us that explosions, be they big or small, do not create anything orderly. They destroy.
Explosions can destroy whole civilisations (e.g. Thera), can Krak-atoa, wipe out cities (atomic), collapse skyscraper buildings, leave humans dismembered all over battlefields.
‘Explosion’ was at least the beginning of the ‘Big Bang’ theory, though scientists are now at pains to distance themselves from that inconvenient image:
http://www.originsquest.org/expansion-not-a-ldquobig-bangrdquo-explosion.html

Lemaître started the idea that the universe began with an explosion. He was also wrong about that. The universe did not explode. It expanded. Explosions disrupt existing order, but the expansion of the universe was orderly. Astronomers have photographed the universe as it was after a great deal of expansion. Considerable order is still clearly visible, particularly the order of uniformity or homogeneity.

[End of quote]

Bob Enyart has rejected the ‘Big Bang’ theory of the origins of the universe, listing these reasons why: https://kgov.com/evidence-against-the-big-bang
 
* RSR's List of Evidence Against the Big Bang: For descriptions and links to journal references, see below.
- Mature galaxies exist where the BB predicts only infant galaxies (like the 13.4Bly distant GN-z11)
- An entire universe-worth of missing antimatter contradicts most fundamental BB prediction
- Observations show that spiral galaxies are missing millions of years of BB predicted collisions
- Clusters of galaxies exist at great distances where the BB predicts they should not exist
- A trillion stars are missing an unimaginably massive quantity of heavy elements, a total of nine billion years worth
- Galaxy superclusters exist yet the BB predicts that gravity couldn't form them even in the alleged age of the cosmos
- A missing generation of the alleged billions of first stars that the failed search has implied simply never existed
- Missing uniform distribution of earth's radioactivity
- Solar system formation theory wrong too
- It is "philosophy", not science, that makes the big-bang claim that the universe has no center
- Amassing evidence suggests the universe may have a center
- Sun missing nearly 100% of the spin that natural formation would impart
- Supernova theory for the origin of heavy elements now widely rejected
- Missing uniform distribution of solar system isotopes
- Missing billions of years of additional clustering of nearby galaxies
- Surface brightness of the furthest galaxies, against a fundamental BB claim, is identical to that of the nearest galaxies
- Missing shadow of the big bang with the long-predicted "quieter" echo behind nearby galaxy clusters now disproved
- The CMB and other alleged confirmed big bang predictions (Google: big bang predictions. See that we're #1.)
- These "shouldn't exist" – a supermassive black hole, an iron-poor star, and a dusty galaxy – but they do
- Fine tuning and dozens of other MAJOR scientific observations and 1,000+ scientists doubting the big bang.

[End of quote]

Creationist John Hartnett, writing in Creation 37(3):48–51 (July 2015), is of a similar mind:
https://creation.com/big-bang-beliefs-busted

Big bang beliefs: busted

by John Hartnett

The commonly accepted big bang model supposedly determines the history of the universe precisely (see Figure 1). Yet to do so, it is filled with unprovable fudge factors. That may sound like an exaggerated claim, but it seems to be the state of cosmology today.

This situation has come about because the unverifiable starting assumptions are inherently wrong! Some brave physicists have had the temerity to challenge the ruling paradigm—the standard big bang ΛCDM inflation cosmology.¹ One of those is Prof. Richard Lieu, Department Chair, Astrophysics, University of Alabama, who wrote:

“Cosmology is not even astrophysics: all the principal assumptions in this field are unverified (or unverifiable) in the laboratory … .”² [emphasis added]

He goes on to say that this is “because the Universe offers no control experiment, …” He means that the same observations can be interpreted in several different ways. Because there are no other universes to compare ours with, you can’t determine absolutely which is the correct answer. That means, we do not know what a typical universe should look like. As a result cosmologists today are inventing all sorts of stuff that has just the right properties to make their theories work, but it is stuff that has never been observed in the lab. They have become “comfortable with inventing unknowns to explain the unknown”, says Lieu.
Figure 1. Alleged history of the universe.

Dark matter and dark energy

Cosmologists tell us we live in a universe filled with invisible, unobserved stuff—about 74% dark energy and 22% dark matter (see Figure 2). But what is this stuff that we cannot detect yet should be all around us? Only 4% of the matter/energy content of the Universe is supposed to be the ordinary atoms that we are familiar with.

In June 2013, after the release of the first results from the Planck satellite, the fractions of dark energy and dark matter were significantly changed to 68% dark energy and 27% dark matter, leaving 5% normal atomic matter.³
Cosmology is not even astrophysics: all the principal assumptions in this field are unverified (or unverifiable) in the laboratory … .—Richard Lieu, Department Chair, Astrophysics, University of Alabama
Yet we are told that now we are in a period of precision cosmology.⁴ But we see a total disagreement between the determination of these fractions from high redshift supernova measurements and Planck CMB measurements. Even the claimed errors do not help the values to coincide.⁵
For 40 years, one form or another of dark matter has been sought in the laboratory, e.g. the axion (named after a popular US brand of laundry detergent, because they thought its discovery would clean up some problems with particle physics). Recently a claim was made alleging the detection of a dark matter particle in a lab experiment, but that claim requires rigorous verification.⁶Figure 2. Alleged mass/energy content of universe³ Now we also have dark energy— some sort of anti-gravity that is supposedly driving the universe apart at an even faster pace than in the past. It was reported that,
“It is an irony of nature that the most abundant form of energy in the universe is also the most mysterious. Since the breakthrough discovery that the cosmic expansion is accelerating, a consistent picture has emerged indicating that two-thirds of the cosmos is made of ‘dark energy’—some sort of gravitationally repulsive material.”⁷ [emphasis added]
Supposedly, dark energy is a confirmed fact. But does the evidence confirm that the universal expansion is accelerating? They are right about the irony; even though this energy is allegedly so abundant, it cannot be observed locally in the laboratory. In 2011, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the discovery of the accelerating universe, which means dark energy must be real stuff (it would seem that science’s ‘gatekeepers’ can’t ever renege on that now). But it has no correspondence to anything we know in the laboratory today, which hardly makes sense.

As Lieu points out,

“… astronomical observations can never by themselves be used to prove ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ a physical theory. This is because we live in only one Universe—the indispensible ‘control experiment’ is not available.”⁸
There is no way to interact with and get a response from the Universe to test the theory under question, as an experimentalist might do in a laboratory experiment. At most, the cosmologist collects as much data as he can, and uses statistical arguments to try to show that his conclusion is likely. Says Lieu (emphasis added):

“Hence the promise of using the Universe as a laboratory from which new incorruptible physical laws may be established without the support of laboratory experiments is preposterous …”.⁸
 

Unknowns to explain unknowns

Lieu lists five evidences where cos­mologists use ‘unknowns’ to explain ‘unknowns’, and hence he says they are not really doing astrophysics. Yet these evidences are claimed to be all explained (and in the case of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)⁹ radiation even predicted¹⁰) by the ΛCDM inflation model of the big bang. None of them are based on laboratory experiments, and they are unlikely to ever be explained this way. The ‘unknowns’ in the lab (meaning not known to physics today) are listed in italics. They are:

1. The redshift of light from galaxies, explained by expansion of space,¹¹
2. The Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, explained as the afterglow of the Big Bang,
3. The perceived motion of stars and gases in the disks of spiral galaxies,¹² explained by dark matter,
4. Distant supernovae ¹³ being dimmer than they should be, hence an accelerating universe, explained by dark energy,
5. Flatness (space has Euclidean geometry) and isotropy (uniformity in all directions), explained by faster-than-light inflation (see box)

As an experimentalist, I know the standards used in so-called ‘cosmology experiments’ would never pass muster in my lab. Yet it has been said we are now living in the era of ‘precision cosmology’.¹⁴
Cosmologist Max Tegmark said,

“… 30 years ago, cosmology was largely viewed as somewhere out there between philosophy and metaphysics. You could speculate over a bunch of beers about what happened, and then you could go home, because there wasn’t a whole lot else to do.” [But now they are closing in on a] “consistent picture of how the universe evolved from the earliest moment to the present.”⁴
How can that be true if none of Lieu’s five observations listed above can be explained by ‘knowns’? They have been explained by resorting to ‘unknowns’ with a sleight of hand that allows the writer to say, ‘We are closing in on the truth.’

What this leads to

Nobel Laureate Steven Chu said that we now understand nearly all there is to know about the Universe, except for a few small details; like what is dark energy and dark matter which [allegedly] make up 96% of the stuff in the Universe.

I recall Nobel Laureate Steven Chu speaking to a large gathering of high school children on the occasion of the Australian Institute of Physics National Congress at the Australian National University in Canberra in 2005. He said that we now understand nearly all there is to know about the Universe, except for a few small details; like what is dark energy and dark matter which [allegedly] make up 96% of the stuff in the Universe.

Cosmologists may have their objectives—to shore up their faith in a model based on false and unverifiable assumptions—but it is a leaky bucket that cannot hold back the evidence that ultimately will be published against it.
The fact is that the history of the universe cannot be determined from a model which cannot be independently tested. And many fudge factors are needed for the present model to describe the observations. The Big Bang cosmology is verified in the minds of those who already hold to that belief—that the Universe created itself about 14 billion years ago—ex nihilo. To me the biblical big picture is far more believable—we are only left to fill in the details. ….