Re: Creation

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@sfu.ca>]

> > > True of the earlier editions, but not of the most recent (1993)
> > > edition, which has a page-long discussion of inflation at the
> > > end of the new Afterword.  Apparently, Weinberg does not consider
> > > it to be nonsense, and who am I to disagree with Big Steve?  -dan
> >
> > Sorry to hear that Ol' carrot-top has succumbed to fashion.
> >
> > Leigh
>
> If you'll actually read what Weinberg says about inflation, I think
> you'll agree that he approaches it with the proper suspicion and
> suspended judgement.  There is a middle ground between considering
> an idea to be "nonsense" and believing it just because it is
> fashionable.

I'm glad to hear that. I'm in that middle ground. I can tolerate a
background of hare-brained ideas that don't go away just because
they have not been invalidated by empiry (experiment or observation)
because such ideas have in the past proved to be not absolutely
sterile. Hell, I can even include such topics in my teaching, as I
have in the case of inflation, where I also bundle it with caveats.
I'm an advocate of one myself, that of assuming the baryon number
of the universe is zero until an observation of appropriate scale
proves it to be otherwise.

Leigh