In March 2014 scientists of the BICEP2 study claimed to have found evidence for something called primordial B-modes. In great unison the science news began proclaiming that this was an epic discovery that confirmed the theory of cosmic inflation, a theory about what went on during the universe's first second. For the next few months very many scientists and “household name” news sources described the dubious claims of the BICEP2 scientists as if they were scientific fact. During these months this blog was one of a only tiny handful of sources disputing such claims. During these months I published more than seven posts saying that the results were unreliable, that no evidence had been found to support the theory of cosmic inflation, and that no robust evidence had yet been found for either primordial B-modes or gravitational waves.
By January 2015 the roof had caved in on this claimed breakthrough, with the journal Nature publishing a headline declaring the discovery as "officially dead." Further analysis by scientists found that the results of the BICEP2 team can plausibly be explained as being the result of ordinary dust and something called gravitational lensing, without imagining that the observations are caused by anything having to do with gravitational waves, primordial B-modes, the Big Bang, or primordial cosmic inflation.
Since then much additional effort has been expended trying to detect evidence for these primordial B-modes. The effort (including a BICEP 3 project) has failed to find any evidence of such things.
A telescope used to search for primordial B-modes (source)
To get an analogy for the scientists who spent all this effort looking for primordial B-modes, we might imagine some scientists planting lots of microphones in the deep woods, to listen for evidence of Bigfoot. We can imagine a conference in which the scheme might have been hatched:
Professor Jones: How can we prove that Bigfoot exists? We're not getting anywhere with those cameras we planted in the woods.
Professor Smith: I've got it! We'll plant lots of microphones in the woods, to listen for the sound of big heavy Bigfoot feet crushing leaves underneath them.
Professor Jones: Oh, come on. There are deer and bears that walk around in the woods, and also hunters with big heavy boots. They would sound just like Bigfoot walking around.
Professor Smith: Well, we can write analytic software that might be able to distinguish between the sound of deer crushing leaves underfoot, the sound of bears crushing leaves underfoot, the sound of heavy-booted hunters crushing leaves underfoot, and the sound of Bigfoot crushing leaves underfoot.
Such a zany undertaking is a pretty good analogy for what is going on with the primordial B-mode seekers. They are looking for incredibly faint trace signs of these primordial B-modes, but the problem is that wherever they look they find tons of noise from three other things that produce observational effects like would be produced by these primordial B-modes. Those three things are dust (which is all over the place in space), synchrotron radiation and gravitational lensing. So the scientists looking for such primordial B-modes are like people who have taken tape recordings in the deep woods, and are trying to distinguish the sound of Bigfoot feet crushing leaves from the sound of deer and bears and hunters crushing leaves.
Is it fair to compare these primordial B-modes to Bigfoot? Yes, because these primordial B-modes and the theory behind them (the theory of cosmic inflation) are fanciful and unfounded in observations. We actually have some people who claimed to have seen Bigfoot and who have not recanted their observations, while no one has claimed to have observed primordial B-modes or cosmic inflation except some 2014 scientists who recanted their claims.
The theory of cosmic inflation (originating around 1979) is an unnecessary add-on to the theory of the Big Bang that gained substantial observation support by around 1965. The theory of cosmic inflation is the theory that the universe underwent some astonishing transmogrification during its first second, transforming from an exponentially expanding universe to a universe undergoing only linear expansion (as we now observe it doing). Transmogrification means to suddenly change dramatically as if by magic. Since the theory of theory of cosmic inflation imagines such a thing, it would be more accurate to call it the theory of primordial cosmic transmogrification.
For many decades cosmologists have been lost in a strange little world of fantasy whenever they dealt with this cosmic inflation theory. No evidence has ever existed that the theory is true. As different versions of the theory have kept failing, cosmologists keep producing new versions of the theory; and by now there are hundreds of versions of it, making predictions all over the map. All attempts to provide some empirical support for it have failed, as nothing has come from searches for primordial B-modes that have gone on for years with fancy expensive equipment. A 2019 article states, "Models such as natural and quadratic inflation that were popular several years ago no longer seem tenable, says theorist Marc Kamionkowski of Johns Hopkins University." But rather than discarding a theoretical approach that isn't working, our cosmologists keep spinning out more and more speculative ornate versions of the theory (which already has hundreds of different versions). Cosmic inflation theory is correctly described as tribal folklore, the tribe being the very small band of people who describe themselves as cosmologists.
We are often told that scientists abandon theories that fail observational tests, but in reality scientists often just respond to such failures by stubbornly creating ever-more-ornate and speculative versions of such theories. Similarly, if some detective thinks that Waldo Billerson killed his mother, but if the only blood found at the crime scene is found to be that of the mother and Abner Venders, the detective may try to patch up the observational failure by engaging in wild speculations, such as suggesting that maybe Waldo first bloodied Abner and then killed Waldo's mother, causing the blood of Abner not Waldo to be found at the crime scene where Abner never was. The speculations of cosmologists trying to patch up failing cosmic inflation models are far more ornate and complicated than the speculation I just mentioned.
Noting the complete failure of searches for the primordial B-modes, a scientist recently stated, "If, however, future measurements continue to find no gravitational-wave signal, it will likely imply that we must seriously reconsider our inflationary models or perhaps dismiss inflation altogether, which would be a significant paradigm shift." A more candid version of that statement would say something like this: "All these observational failures are making it pretty clear that cosmologists have been wasting their time for forty years messing around with groudless theories of primordial cosmic inflation."
The 2015 discovery of gravitational waves from stellar objects was not a discovery of cosmology. There have been no important discoveries in cosmology in the past twenty years. In a page entitled "The Pathologies of Cosmology," scientist M. J. Disney has stated the following:
"Cosmology must be the slowest moving branch of science. The number of practitioners per relevant observation is ridiculous. Consequently the same old things have to be said by the same old people (and by new ones) over and over and over again. For instance 'Cold Dark Matter' now sounds to me like a religious liturgy which its adherents chant like a mantra in the mindless hope that it will spring into existence. Much of cosmology is unhealthily self-referencing and it seems to an outsider like myself that cosmological fashions and reputations are made more by acclamation than by genuine scientific debate."
What he said about cold dark matter could be said just as rightfully about primordial cosmic inflation.
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