Scientists protest censorship in Cosmology
This is a follow up to the scandal which erupted following this article, courtesy several publications based on the feedback firstly of Eric Lerner (who penned the Open Letter on Cosmology), then many others. Both articles are hosted and not written by me. The original for this one is to be found here.
Physicists and Astronomers from Ten Countries Protest arXiv’s Censorship of Papers Refuting the Big Bang HypothesisTwenty-four astronomers and physicists from ten countries have signed a petition protesting the censorship of papers that are critical of the Big Bang Hypothesis by the open pre-print website arXiv. Run by Cornell University, arXiv is supposed to provide an open public forum for researchers to exchange pre-publication papers, without peer-review. But during June, 2022, arXiv rejected for publication on the website three papers by Dr. Riccardo Scarpa, Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, and Eric J. Lerner, LPPFusion, Inc. which are critical of the validity of the Big Bang hypothesis: “Will LCDM cosmology survive the James Webb Space Telescope?” , “Observations of Large-Scale Structures Contradict the Predictions of the Big Bang Hypothesis But Confirm Plasma Theory”, and “The Big Bang Never Happened—A Reassessment of the Galactic Origin of Light Elements (GOLE) Hypothesis and its Implications”.The papers had previously been rejected by MNRAS, with the anonymous senior editor writing of two of them: There are many journals which would be interested in publishing a well-argued synthesis of existing evidence against the standard hot big bang interpretation. But MNRAS, with its focus on publication of significant new astronomical results, is not one of them.” The editor in chief, Dr. D. R. Fowler, confirmed that no such comprehensive critique of the Big Bang hypothesis would be published.
In the petition, the scientists write: “Without judging the scientific validity of the papers, it is clear to us that these papers are both original and substantive and are of interest to all those concerned with the current crisis in cosmology. It plainly appears that arXiv has refused publication to these papers only because of their conclusions, which both provide specific predictions relevant to forthcoming observations and challenge LCDM cosmology. Such censorship is anathema to scientific discourse and to the possibility of scientific advance.” (LCDM cosmology is the current, dark-energy-dark-matter, version of the Big Bang Hypothesis.)
The scientists conclude: “We strongly urge that arXiv maintain its long-standing practice of being an ‘open-access archive’of non-peer reviewed ‘scholarly articles’ and not violate that worthy practice by imposing any censorship. Instead, we encourage arXiv to abide by its own principles, and publish these three papers and others like them that clearly provide ‘sufficient original or substantive scholarly research’ results and are of obvious great interest to the arXiv audience.”
While the petition was initiated in response to arXiv censorship of the three papers submitted in June of this year, in the course of gathering signatures, evidence emerged that there is indeed a general policy of censoring papers that questioned concordance cosmology. “I have had exactly the same experience” said Dr. Vaclav Vavrycuk, Czech Academy of Science and a signer of the petition. “Last December I submitted my paper, ‘Cosmological Redshift and Cosmic Time Dilation in the FLRW Metric’ to arXiv and the manuscript was rejected with no clear reason. The paper is nowpublished
in Frontiers in Physics. It’s ridiculous.”
Starting in January 2019, a series of papers by Grit Kalies, HTW University of Applied Sciences Dresden and Christian Jooss, Institute of Materials Physics, University of Goettingen, also singers of the petition, were rejected by arXiv and they too questioned the validity of the Big Bang Hypothesis. They wrote in a letter to arXiv, “the anonymous moderators are misusing arXiv to promote their personal or the prevailing worldview in physics.”
“Clearly, a wide-reaching censorship was put in place in 2019,” says Eric J. Lerner, one of the authors of the June 2022 papers. “Even as recently as 2018 I had no trouble publishing on arXiv a paper refuting aspects of the Big Bang hypothesis. But as the crisis in cosmology became obvious in 2019, the arXiv leadership and others like them have circled the wagons to protect this failed theory with censorship, because it now has no other defense. That is not how to advance science. We are shouting out that the Emperor has no clothes, while the cosmological establishment is trying to put their hands over our mouths.”
The signers of the petition are affiliated with some of the leading institutions in astronomy and physics, including the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, which runs the world’s largest ground-based telescope and CEA Saclay, one of Europe’s leading physics research centers. Together, the signers have published over 370 papers on arXiv.
“We’ve just begun to collect signatures and we invite scientists and engineers who oppose censorship to sign on by sending their names and affiliations to me ateric@lppfusion.com
,” says Lerner. “We’re also urging everyone to evade the censorship by reading the censored papers for themselves on our ownpage
, and spreading the link to others. Censorship in science can’t be allowed to prevail.”
The petition and with the list of initial signers is below. After that is the background on the three censored papers. A separate press releasehere
summarizes the scientific content of the three papers.
A Petition Against Censorship
Petition to arXiv Scientific Director Steinn Sigurdsson and Head of Content Jim Entwood
from Astronomers, Astrophysicists, Cosmologists, Space Scientists, High Energy Physicists and Plasma Physicists
As scientists engaged in the study of the cosmos and the relation of phenomena in space to those here on Earth, we strongly protest arXiv’s censorship of controversial papers on cosmology and specifically on the Big Bang hypothesis. Run by Cornell University, arXiv is supposed to provide an open public forum for researchers to exchange pre-publication papers, without undertaking to peer-review them. But during June, 2022, arXiv rejected for publication three papers by Dr. Riccardo Scarpa, Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, and Eric J. Lerner, LPPFusion, Inc. which are critical of the validity of the Big Bang hypothesis: “Will LCDM cosmology survive the James Webb Space Telescope?” , “Observations of Large-Scale Structures Contradict the Predictions of the Big Bang Hypothesis But Confirm Plasma Theory”, and “The Big Bang Never Happened—A Reassessment of the Galactic Origin of Light Elements (GOLE) Hypothesis and its Implications”. No specific reason was given for these rejections, which was done by form letters stating that the papers lacked “sufficient original or substantive scholarly research”, needed “revision”, and were “not of interest to arXiv.”
Without judging the scientific validity of the papers, it is clear to us that these papers are both original and substantive and are of interest to all those concerned with the current crisis in cosmology. It plainly appears that arXiv has refused publication to these papers only because of their conclusions, which both provide specific predictions relevant to forthcoming observations and challenge LCDM cosmology. Such censorship is anathema to scientific discourse and to the possibility of scientific advance. We strongly urge that arXiv maintain its long-standing practice of being an “open-access archive” of non-peer reviewed “scholarly articles” and not violate that worthy practice by imposing any censorship. Instead, we encourage arXiv to abide by its own principles, and publish these three papers and others like them that clearly provide “sufficient original or substantive scholarly research” results and are of obvious great interest to the arXiv audience.
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