"Astrophysics is mind-blowing stuff". And thought blowing. And reason blowing. And logic blowing. Until recently we used to call that "wrong". Clearly logic reason and meaning no longer have any value among the dominant majority of astrophysicists.
No, that's not clear at all. In fact, it is wrong. Just because our modern understanding of the universe contradicts your notions of what it should be doesn't mean scientists have lost logic and reason. That attitude itself is illogical and unreasonable.
Just why isn't a case emerging neo-ptolemyic scholaticism? Is the dominant view TODAY always right? With the intellectual life at the universities being what it is, why do we fail to question the "latest findings" in this increasingly byzantine and contentious field (that's right, this article is ignoring all the consensus that ISN'T).
Of course the view TODAY is not alway right, but the direction of progess is clear. We are learning more and understanding more about the universe. It is not just a randomly changing set of views over time.
Who doesn't question the latest findings? These things aren't treated as revealed truth. They are constantly questioned. This article itself discusses two seperate studies that revealed the same answer. Had the first one been wrong the second would have contradicted it. The first wasn't just accepted as fact. That's how science works.
Sure these folks have numbers to back up what they say. So does everyone else. Only a reasoned analysis can reveal whose numbers most accurately reflect actual conditions.
Who is "everyone else" and what are their numbers? Reasoned analysis is what this is all about. The observations can't support two opposed views. There is only one truth.
But to return to science as discovery rather then science as metaphysically revealed religion we would have to turn from science a the knowledge of the TRUTH to science as the awareness of the problem.
Since when is science a "metaphysically revealed religion"? Since it started getting answers you didn't like?
Given the state of public and university education these days, I fear the heyday of true scientific QUESTIONING may be over for a while.
Still, while we've truly gained what we've gained, clearly scientific progress stalls during intellectual and cultural declines.
For those who would argue the above, dealing with the inarguable fact of our overall intellectual and cultural decline is their largest nemesis.
I argue the above on its merits, regardless of any cultural decline. That is more reasonable and logical.