Welcome to Catholic ‘Star Wars’ The Principle versus Catholic Answers
Welcome to Catholic ‘Star Wars’:
The Principle versus Catholic Answers
We don’t recall seeing the name “Jimmy Akin” on the New York or LA film critic’s list, and
we have never seen a movie review published by Jimmy Akin for the National Catholic
Register or any other news outlet, so how is it that NCR chose Mr. Akin to write a review of
The Principle?1 Tom Wennar is the person at NCR who chose Akin, apparently without the
knowledge of editor‐in‐chief, Jeanette De Melo, which we learned from email
correspondence with Ms. De Melo. So, the obvious question is, did Tom Wennar pick Akin
knowing that Catholic Answers, for whom Akin works, has mounted a two‐year long
vociferous and cruel campaign to nix The Principle from the intellectual landscape? If so, the
journalistic integrity of Mr. Wennar, if not NCR itself, is certainly in question. It is an industry
standard not to ask for reviews from inexperienced and prejudiced third parties. If you read
the comment section of Akin’s review, even his own fans are contesting it. Some have
assessed it as more of a hit‐piece than a fair and unbiased review. Let’s see why...
Ironically, when it comes to science, Catholic Answers and Jimmy Akin are much closer to
the atheists interviewed in The Principle, such as Lawrence Krauss and Michio Kaku, than
they are with Catholic tradition and its official teachings on cosmology. The worst part is,
instead of allowing open and honest debate, Catholic Answers has tried its best to stifle any
opposition to its scientific ideology, and it has done so with the most vile and sadistic
ridicule. At one point Karl Keating stated on his blog in early 2014 that he intended to
contact B’nai B’rith to enlist its help in stopping The Principle, although he took it down a
few minutes later since apparently even he realized how explosive such a tactic would be
perceived in the public domain.
Due in large part to Keating’s initiative, The Principle had a bull’s eye imprinted on its back
by the national press since April 2014 when the producers were falsely accused of “duping”
the scientists interviewed in the film into participating without knowing what the film was
about, including accusing the executive producer of being an “anti‐semite,” despite his
clear and concise statements to the contrary. Later in 2014, the producers appeared on
Michael Voris’ show, Mic’d Up, and displayed the signed contracts of the participants, which
clearly stated the purpose and content of the film, as well as denying any anti‐semitic
sentiments. The thwarting of the media witch hunt was secured when, after Kate Mulgrew,
The Principle’s narrator, told the press that she had “no idea what the film was about,” was
later shown on camera months earlier saying, “in order to do a good narration, I need to
know what the film is about.”
Although The Principle had the highest gross for any single screen debut in the United
States for the weekend of October 24, on his blog Karl Keating wasted no time contrasting
that with much bigger box office openings of more popular movies so that he could make
The Principle look as small as possible. So when his right hand man for the last two decades, Jimmy Akin, is asked by NCR to write a review of The Principle, we can almost tell what’s coming before we read it.
Just a little aside before we delve into a critique of Akin’s review is the fact that Akin may
have seen the movie a few months ago when one of Catholic Answers’ employees, Trent
Horn, tricked someone on our staff into letting him see a Vimeo of an unfinished cut of the
movie. Our staff person, not knowing any better, gave the passcode to Mr. Horn, who in
turn gave it to Keating. When Keating was warned by Stellar Motion Pictures that his
employee had dishonestly provided him access to the film and that he should do his civic
duty and apologize for his employee’s dishonesty, Mr. Keating simply ignored the demand
and watched the film with his whole staff and published a review of it, without our
permission. He also dared us to sue him.
Akin’s first line of attack is to claim that The Principle is “a documentary that promotes
geocentrism, or the idea that the earth is at the center of the universe.” Not quite. The
Principle does not “promote” any particular view. If it did, then every time one of the
participants in the film espoused a contrary view, we would have shot down every word he
said. Instead, the film allows advocates of the Copernican Principle to speak their mind. We
then allow those with different viewpoints (e.g., galactocentrism, geocentrism and
Lorentzian physics) to give an alternative interpretation to the same evidence. In other
words, The Principle is completely fair to all sides of the issue. Conversely, in his review for
NCR, Mr. Akin did the same thing the press did in April 2014, that is, create a boogeyman of
his own choosing. In fact, Akin says that the very reason he decided to do his review for
NCR is because “the film is being disproportionately discussed in conservative Catholic
circles, so I agreed.” In other words, The Principle is a hot topic of discussion infringing on
the beliefs of Jimmy Akin and Catholic Answers and Mr. Akin is coming to the rescue to put
the fire out.
Akin then tries to make an issue of the fact that The Principle “made only $16,826” at the
box office over the last two weekends (Oct. 24 to Nov. 7). Akin’s motive is revealed when
we find out that The Principle had the 5th highest “average per screen opening” of all films
in the US for Oct. 24, and had the highest gross of any “single screen debut” in the US, with
$8,657 in receipts. This beat out films like Ouija, John Wick, and Fury, whose average per
screen was only $6,955, $5,568 and $4,209, respectively. But, of course, that little detail
would make The Principle look much better than Mr. Akin intended it to look. In fact, if we
extrapolate The Principle’s per screen average to the same number of screens as John Wick
(i.e., 2,589 screens), The Principle would have made $22,412,973 to John Wick’s $14,415,022!
The mere fact that the US’s largest theater chain, AMC, allowed an independent, family‐
friendly, science documentary on its screens, and at the largest theater in the third largest
city of America is astounding! In fact, last week’s results were so good that AMC held The
Principle over for the weekend of November 14‐16. But this doesn’t impress Jimmy Akin
because, well, he just doesn’t want to be impressed.
Next, Akin uses a bait and switch. He compares The Principle to the 1976 film Overlords of
the UFO and says that both movies “contain footage of people who were profoundly
embarrassed by the film and who subsequently disassociated themselves with the project.”
Sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? What Akin fails to tell his reader is that the few people in the
movie who “disassociated themselves” were fed the same lies by the media that Jimmy
Akin is feeding his present reader in his NCR review and which Karl Keating has been
feeding them for several months, namely, that The Principle is one‐sided and prejudiced and
that the producers are racial bigots. So let’s make this clear so everyone, especially Catholic
Answers, understands. The Principle is a documentary about the recent challenges to the
Copernican Principle from scientific evidence gathered in the last 20 years that strongly
suggests the Earth is at or near the center of the universe. But The Principle is completely
fair and unbiased since it allows for those who believe in the Copernican Principle to defend
it as best they can.
Astonishingly, however, the evidence for a central alignment of Earth with the rest of the
universe is confirmed by even some of the opposing scientists in the film, such as Lawrence
Krauss of ASU and Max Tegmark of MIT. Be that as it may, the most important question
that Akin does not address is, how, with good reason, could some of the participants
“disassociate themselves” from the movie in April 2014 when they hadn’t even seen the
movie, but were forced to listen only to the ideological rantings of the sworn enemies of
the producers in the national press, not to mention Karl Keating’s possible follow up to his
threat to enlist B’nai B’rith to write bad press about The Principle and its producers? Curious
minds want to know.
As regards cinematography, Akin’s first complaint is that The Principle’s “two‐dimensional
animations...particularly those depicting historical figures...were redrawn or retouched
and then animated in a clunky way that is basically a step above the cutout animations that
Terry Gilliam produced for Monty Python,” and later calling them “disappointing” and
“juvenile.” Interestingly enough, BUF Compagnie of Paris who did our graphics, specifically
chose the “Monty Python” effect because it was so popular with other movies they had
done. BUF’s purpose was to provide some comic relief to an otherwise very serious film.
Considering that BUF has done over 100 major films in its 30‐year career, I dare say they
knew what they were doing. No one but Jimmy Akin has complained about it. Jimmy also
didn’t like what he refers to as the “goofy holographic‐computer‐interface‐dictionary‐lady‐
who‐speaks‐with‐an‐apparent‐British‐accent who pops up occasionally to define a term.” To
each his own. I personally don’t like Jimmy Akin’s cowboy hat since it makes him look more
like Roy Rogers than a serious apologist and film critic, but that’s just me.
Akin then complains about the length of the film because, “With significant sections of the
film being unintelligible to a typical viewer and with the film at 90 minutes running time,
many will feel parts of it boring. Thus, in a way, the film seems too long.” But 90 minutes is
the standard for theatrical movies, and sometimes they go way over, such as Interstellar
which runs for two hours and forty‐nine minutes. As for dealing with difficult science issues,
The Principle is an intellectual documentary and we certainly understand that some issues
will go over the head of the average viewer. But we haven’t yet met a viewer who didn’t
understand the main message of the movie, namely, that the Copernican Principle may be
overturned in favor of the Earth being in a special, and perhaps, central location in the
universe. Still, with all his personal complaints and inexperience, Akin gives The Principle
two and a half stars for its filmmaking.
He is not so generous, however, when it comes to content, for it is here that Akin faces his
ideological enemy – Catholic “fundamentalists” who would dare give an alternative
interpretation to the scientific evidence other than the Big Bang and Evolution that is
incessantly preached by Catholic Answers. Akin complains that,
“At the highest level, the film contains a message that science and faith are not enemies and should not be pitted against each other. Fine. But that doesn’t mean that the earth is at the center of the universe, which is what the film wants to suggest.”
Let’s ask a fair question of Mr. Akin, then. If The Principle were, as he says trying to prove geocentrism, why is that particular scientific possibility so repugnant to Mr. Akin? Let us venture an educated guess. As put best by one of our investors when he saw Mr. Akin’s review: “There are cheap shots being given by amateurs untrained in the sciences. The mantra in our society is to accept the current paradigm and do not dare to question. Dick N.” How true. Here we have a one‐of‐a‐kind, intellectually stimulating film that could actually turn society toward God; a film which is free of Hollywood’s nudity, foul language
and atheism, but all Mr. Akin can do is stick his finger into the air to see which way the Big Bang wind is flowing. So stigmatized are modern Catholics about the Church’s dealing with Galileo in 1633 that they simply don’t want any food fight with the reigning powers of scientific academia today. They would rather eat their own young than cross the gods of popular science, much like the Israelites were frightened to conquer the land of Canaan for fear of the “giants in the land” and thus God forced them to spend the next 40 years in the desert where they all died, except Joshua and Caleb.
Akin also complains that we allowed “Michio Kaku [to] get away with saying that Giordano Bruno was burned alive ‘for simply saying that there are other worlds out there,’ because, according to Akin, “it is not true.” First, Akin fails to state what isn’t true about Kaku’s statement; second, he proves our contention of how the film was made, that is, we allowed those opposed to the Church and the Faith to make their points, no matter how absurd they might seem. The audience can then judge for itself whether these scientists are credible. In fact, the very reason The Principle works so well is that the atheistic participants often end up crucifying themselves before we ever lift a finger, such as when Michio Kaku says, “If our Earth really turns out to be special, then I would say, Hey. God made a mistake.” Right, Micho.
Akin then says, “The film’s discussion of recent physics is also largely fine. Even some of the critiques it offers of modern scientific ideas are good (e.g., that we shouldn’t overplay the idea of a multiverse). But again, these don’t prove geocentrism, which is what the film is interested in advocating.” Akin keeps beating the same dead horse. Once again, the film does not set out to “prove geocentrism.” Rather, its only purpose is to display the experimental evidence – from the very telescopes of the atheists and agnostics it interviews – that the Copernican Principle has little or no support and thus it is high‐time that religion and science bridge the gap and bring their discussions to a higher level.
Next, Akin goes way out of bounds when, after he beats the dead horse, he then justifies it by comparing The Principle’s message to that of a National Enquirer‐type tabloid that suggests outlandish things have happened in order to titillate the reader into believing that they actually did happen. Akin writes:
“We should note the way in which The Principle advocates geocentrism. It does not come out and say, in a straightforward way, with the full editorial voice of the film, ‘The earth is at the center of the universe.’ Instead, it uses the kind of breathless “What if . . . ?” style of advocacy that you find in documentaries inviting us to consider whether—just maybe—Jesus Christ might have been married to Mary Magdalene. Or whether—just perhaps—he never rose from the dead. Or even—just maybe perhaps—he was a space alien.”
To imply that the producers would use such deceptive and misleading arguments is, of course, beyond the pale of journalistic ethics, especially from someone who claims to be a Christian.
As regards his attempt to cast the producers as partial, we find it rather revealing that Mr. Akin deliberately left out the most important statement advocating a geocentric universe made in the movie. That statement does not come from the three geocentrists in the movie, but from the atheist and now archenemy of The Principle, Lawrence Krauss who, after telling us of his observations of the cosmological evidence for the past two decades, is quoted in The Principle saying,
“But when you look at the CMB map, you also see that the structure that is ob‐ served is, in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the Earth around the Sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That’s crazy. We’re looking out at the whole universe. There’s no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the Earth around the Sun – the plane of the Earth around the Sun – the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe.”
So here we have one of the top secular scientists in the world – a man who just last week said that he “expects religion will die within a generation” – telling us precisely what Jimmy Akin doesn’t want to hear in The Principle about the Earth’s position in the universe. The same admission was made by other atheistic, Big Bang adherents in the film. So if Mr. Akin wants to complain that The Principle is “promoting geocentrism,” perhaps he can tell us why someone like Lawrence Krauss did just that; and not merely the guy in the movie who wrote Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right. Perhaps the evidence was so overwhelming for Dr. Krauss that, even detesting the concept of a geocentric universe, as a scientist he just couldn’t help himself, at least this time, to ‘tell it like it is.’ That’s more than I can say for Jimmy Akin and Catholic Answers who seem to have a vested interest to ‘not tell it like it is,’ no matter what evidence they see.
In another instance, Akin inadvertently proves the integrity of the filmmakers without being aware he is doing so. He writes: “A good bit of the film just tries to poke holes in current cosmological ideas by proposing alternate interpretations rather than making a positive case for geocentrism.” Perhaps Mr. Akin never stopped to consider that the producers did precisely what he states because the film is not, as he claimed elsewhere, seeking to “prove geocentrism,” but instead seeks to reveal the demise of the Copernican Principle and then allows the viewer to be presented with “alternative interpretations” that might better fit the cosmological evidence. If one of the alternatives that fits is, according to the illustrious Dr. Lawrence Krauss and his esteemed colleagues, an Earth in “the center of the universe,” why would Jimmy Akin, who fashions himself as a seeker of truth, be so opposed to such an alternative? It doesn’t make sense. The only thing that makes sense is that Jimmy Akin has an agenda not to be influenced by the evidence, either because he personally wishes to close his eyes or because someone above him demanded he do so.
Akin tries to save himself from partiality by admitting that the filmmakers “note that you could explain the fact that almost all galaxies appear to be moving away from us either by proposing an expanding universe, in which almost all galaxies are moving away from each other, or by proposing that our galaxy is at the center of the universe and everything is moving away from us.” Of these two possibilities he says, “Fine. Either one of those works,” as if that solves the problem.
The problem, which Mr. Akin either doesn’t see or deliberately ignores, is that the only model taught in our high schools and universities is the “expanding universe,” commonly known as the Big Bang. In fact, as Einstein’s relativity theory is the basis for the Big Bang, it also has two possible interpretations. One says: (a) the Earth rotates daily in a non‐moving universe, and the other says: (b) the universe rotates daily around a non‐moving Earth, and both are theoretically true, yet relativity can’t tell us which one is the reality.2 Nevertheless, the powers‐that‐be say that only (a) is to be taught to our school children and (b) is only heard in The Principle.
But if either model works, and since Hubble, by his own admission, invented the Big Bang “expanding universe” specifically to avoid the evidence for geocentrism, why doesn’t either Jimmy Akin or Catholic Answers want these facts to be made known to the public? My educated guess is: because they don’t want you to know about them. But this is precisely why we made The Principle. There has been a dearth of “the other side of the story” in Catholic apologetics, and Karl Keating and Jimmy Akin have been leading the charge to keep it that way. Fortunately, a lot of people are beginning to wake up to the censorship. All one need do is see the “likes” on The Principle’s Facebook page or the attendance at our single screen in Chicago.
Mr. Akin then complains that as the movie uses “a baby’s smile” as evidence of our specialness, this is misplaced because “That’s not evidence that the earth is at the center of anything. Indeed, there could be babies smiling everywhere in the galaxy and symphonies finishing all over the universe and we wouldn’t know it because we don’t have telescopes powerful enough to see them.” The only thing I will say to Mr. Akin on this point is, when someday he looks through his telescope at a distant galaxy and finds a baby’s smile, tell him to inform us immediately and we will be happy to take it out of the anniversary issue of The Principle. Until then, there is no evidence of life on other planets, and as Kate Mulgrew says in The Principle, “If there is, then where is everybody?” But I’m afraid Mr. Akin might be in the same camp as Bro. Guy Cosolmagno of the Vatican Observatory in Arizona who recently
said that he intended to baptize any aliens that visit Earth. I’ll leave you to judge the sanity of that statement.
Mr. Akin’s next line of attack is the 2005 SDSS survey of galaxies in which Professor John Hartnett is interviewed in The Principle showing from his extensive studies that the universe’s galaxies are preponderantly arranged on concentric spheres with our galaxy at or near the center. Dr. Hartnett’s colleague, Dr. Hirano, concluded the following about the galaxy alignments in a separate paper:
“A natural interpretation is that concentric spherical shells of higher galaxy number densities surround us, with their individual centers situated at our location. However, if this interpretation reflected the actual physical concentration of galaxies existing at certain distances from us, it would definitely be incompatible with the cosmological principle that presumes uniformity and isotropy of our space–time. In fact, it has been demonstrated, from many numerical simulations using the Einstein–de Sitter and ΛCDM models, that the probability of getting such a periodic spatial structure from clustering and cosmic web filaments is less than 10−3.”
What is even more interesting is the way Hirano opens his paper, stating right up front that the galaxy spacings he discovered are flatly against the Copernican Principle:
A widespread idea in cosmology is that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic above a certain scale. This hypothesis, usually called the cosmological principle, is thought to be a generalization of the Copernican principle that “the Earth is not in a central, specially favored position”. The assumption is that any observer at any place at the same epoch would see essentially the same picture of the large scale distribution of galaxies in the universe. However, according to a Fourier analysis by Hartnett & Hirano, the galaxy number count N from redshift z data (N–z relation) indicates that galaxies have preferred periodic redshift spacings of ∆z = 0.0102, 0.0246, and 0.0448 in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)... 3
But since there is the slight chance that there might be another way to interpret these spacings, Mr. Akin is quick to insert a dismissive comment: “The argument based on the apparent speeds of the galaxies thus does not prove geocentrism (or even galacto‐ centrism).” This, of course, is a red herring, since The Principle did not set out to “prove geocentrism or even galacto‐centrism” but to offer to the world the astounding evidence that such a universe is possible by the very data that science has collected; and thus the Copernican Principle cannot lay claim to being the only game in town. But as was the case with Hubble’s data and Einstein’s relativity theory wherein there could be two possible interpretations, the geocentric one is invariably eliminated from college textbooks, as well as never appearing in Mr. Akin’s review or any issue of Catholic Answers Magazine.
Next, Mr. Akin tries to tackle the evidence from the cosmic microwave background radiation. But the only refutation he finds is a quote from David Palm (another agenda‐ driven Catholic who despises putting the Earth in the center of the universe). Akin chooses Palm despite the fact that Palm cites no scholar with peer‐reviewed astrophysical credentials (contrary to what I did above by citing Hirano’s peer‐reviewed paper), and also chooses not to cite the rebuttal we wrote against Palm’s biased conclusions (http://galileowaswrong.com/debunking‐palm‐and‐mcandrew‐on‐the‐cmb‐evidence). Well, So much for journalistic fairness. In any case, Palm is quoted as saying:
“Although you would never know it by reading geocentrist literature, the alignments which the new geocentrists highlight in the CMB are far from exact – they are only approximate. It is true that any apparent alignments are interesting to physicists if they are expecting randomness. But the inexactness of the alignments certainly does not create anything like a sound foundation upon which to build the extravagant claims of the geocentrists. It is precarious, at best, to argue that the CMB data are actually ‘pointing to’ the earth when those alignments are off by 7, 14, even 16 degrees according to the most recent, most precise measurements. The geocentrists are again playing fast and loose with the facts. They demand we accept that God intentionally made the earth motionless at the exact center of the universe. Yet, they’re content with supposed evidence that God is an extremely sloppy architect and cartographer who can’t manage to ‘point’ to the earth with a margin of error of less than 16 degrees.”
First, Mr. Palm’s logic is like saying that God is a sloppy architect because he needs billions of sperm to attempt to get to the ovum so that just one can enter to impregnate the woman. Why doesn’t God just make one strong sperm to make it all the way? Mr. Palm is apparently working under the fallacious premise that unless something is simple and small, it can’t be true. Second, let’s take a look at the exact words of MacAndrew from which Palm extracts this “16 degrees.” (I have highlighted MacAndrew’s important comments):
“Using the data from Table 18 of ref [29], which shows the direction in galactic co‐ ordinates of quadrupole and octopole as measured by Planck for a number of different component separation schemes (which are algorithms used to clean the CMB maps of foreground contamination, which is microwave energy that arises from sources that are not part of the CMB), I have calculated the measured angles between various features. The angles between quadrupole, octopole, dipole, equinox and ecliptic plane for the KQ corrected SMICA component separation scheme are...The quadrupole to the ecliptic plane is 16.0°”
So what we see here is that the “16 degrees” is not actually in the scientific literature written by the authoritative experts in this field, but is Alec MacAndrew’s ipse dixit calculation, the very person who is trying to convince us the CMB alignments are inconsequential for geocentrism!
Now notice, however, what MacAndrew himself concludes from his overall analysis:
“So the alignment of these CMB features with themselves, with the kinematic dipole caused by the motion of the solar system, and with the equinox, is far from exact and lies within a 30° cone. Nevertheless this alignment of a number of nominally independent directions is unexpected and the probability that all four align to this degree randomly is only about 0.3%.”
So, after all his huffing and puffing, MacAndrew still admits that when one adds up all the alignments of the CMB, the possibility that four independent directions could align, by mere chance, with the Earth and Sun, could only be about a 0.3%. Not too shabby for the geocentrists, if I must say so myself. According to the CMB, the geocentric universe is 99.7% true, by MacAndrew’s own admission.
That this evidence doesn’t absolutely astound MacAndrew, Palm and Akin shows how obsessed and blinded they are. It shows us that their fight against the geocentric implications of the celestial evidence is more like a personal grudge than a scientific quest. We can understand MacAndrew’s motivation, since he is an admitted atheist. But it is harder to understand Akin’s and Palm’s motivation, since they claim to be a Catholic. Apparently they get a lot of satisfaction siding with atheists against Catholics seeking a return to our traditional roots.
Akin then quotes another paragraph from David Palm’s piece:
“But it’s worse than that for the new geocentrists. Because, as Dr. MacAndrew demonstrates, the CMB data don’t point at anything. As MacAndrew says, ‘the CMB multipole vectors give directional information but no positional information. If you were an astronomical distance away from the Earth, you would not be able to use the CMB multipole vectors to navigate to it.’ The claims of the new geocentrists that somehow the CMB ‘points at the Earth’ is completely fallacious.”
Palm’s logic reminds me of the question, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” If someone were to ask a geocentrist, “Does the CMB point exactly to the Earth,” and he answered “Yes,” then Palm and MacAndrew would shout, “No it doesn’t, since the direction is off by a few degrees!” If someone said “No,” then Palm and MacAndrew would shout, “See, I told you so. Even a geocentrist admits the CMB doesn’t point exactly to Earth.” This is the kind of shell game that Palm has consistently played when he deals with the evidence.
But let’s examine the distinction MacAndrew is claiming, namely, “the CMB multipole vectors give directional information but no positional information.” This is just another word game to throw someone off track. Let’s say someone asked you, “Which direction must I travel to get to the North Pole?” To help him, you pull out your compass and wait for the dial to settle. You show him the direction that the dial is pointing and declare, “That way is North Pole.” But is this exactly true? No, since the magnetic field to which the compass points is a few degrees away from the precise North Pole axis. But, of course, your direction will get him very close to the North Pole, and very far away from the South Pole, China, Russia, the North America. For all intents and purposes, the compass points to the North Pole as opposed to any other direction or position on Earth.
Of course, in order to have an exact position (or what we would call the “exact center” in the universe), we need an X axis, a Y axis and a Z axis, since that will give us three dimensions in Euclidean space. The CMB dipole and quadrupole give us the X and Y axis, but not a Z axis. Hence, the X and Y axis of the CMB provide a direction, but only an approximate position. That is why we have continually said that the CMB puts Earth “at or near the center of the universe.”
For the Z axis we depend on other information, such as quasars and galaxy alignment that the CMB cannot provide. For example, it has been discovered that the anisotropies of extended quasars and radio galaxies are aligned with the Earth’s equator and the North Celestial Pole (NCP).4 The discoverer, Ashok K. Signal, is presently a Big Bang, heliocentrist, and thus he describes his shocking discovery in those terms:
“What is intriguing even further is why such anisotropies should lie about a great circle decided purely by the orientation of earth’s rotation axis and/or the axis of its revolution around the sun? It looks as if these axes have a preferential
placement in the larger scheme of things, implying an apparent breakdown of the Copernican principle or its more generalization, cosmological principle, upon which all modern cosmological theories are based upon.”
“Copernican principle states that earth does not have any eminent or privileged position in the universe and therefore an observer’s choice of origin and/or orientation of his/her coordinate system should have no bearing on the appearance of the distant universe. Its natural generalization is the cosmological principle that the universe on a sufficiently large scale should appear homogeneous and isotropic, with no preferred directions, to all observers. However to us on earth the universe does show heterogeneous structures up to the scale of superclusters of galaxies and somewhat beyond, but it is assumed that it will all appear homogeneous and isotropic when observed on still larger scales, perhaps beyond a couple of hundreds of megaparsecs. Radio galaxies and quasars, the most distant discrete objects (at distances of many gigaparsecs or further) seen in the universe should trace the distribution of matter in the universe at that large scale and should therefore appear isotropically distributed from any vantage point in the universe including that on earth.”5
Hence, as far as we can look into space with our telescopes, we find that the universe is neither homogeneous nor isotropic, even to the most distant radio galaxies and quasars. In light of this, Singal asks the obvious question: “Why should the equinox points [Earth’s equator] and the NCP have any bearing on the large scale distribution of matter in the universe?” This is a very perplexing question for those who believe in the Big Bang, heliocentrism and relativity, since the celestial anisotropies defy them all. The only answer left is that the Earth is in the center of the universe, and that the latter moves with respect to the former.
As of this date, only the Y axis of the CMB alignment has been called “The Axis of Evil” in the secular media. But even with only a Y axis of the CMB, many things can be extrapolated about our “position” in the universe. Here’s why: in a Big Bang universe, where everything is supposed to be isotropic and homogeneous, we shouldn’t see anything even remotely resembling a Y direction. ANY direction is anathema to the Big Bang model.
As for the Y axis of the CMB quadrupole intersecting the X axis of the CMB dipole, modern cosmologists are desperately trying to minimize what we might call a “Double Axes of Evil” by attributing the CMB dipole to a movement of the solar system through the Milky Way galaxy rather than the same intrinsic phenomenon we see in the CMB quadrupole. But intersection of the X and Y axis of the CMB remains regardless of how the dipole is derived. In fact, the intersection is to such a fine degree that scientists conclude the alignment is not with the Milky Way galaxy, but only with the Sun and Earth! In a 2010 paper, a University of Michigan team is astounded at the Earth‐centered results of the 2001 WMAP results (which were later confirmed by the 2013 Planck results). In this study, galactocentrism (of the Milky Way) is eliminated in favor of a geocentric explanation of the CMB alignments:
“Particularly puzzling are the alignments with solar system features. CMB anisotropy should clearly not be correlated with our local habitat. While the observed correlations seem to hint that there is contamination by a foreground or perhaps by the scanning strategy of the telescope, closer inspection reveals that there is no obvious way to explain the observed correlations. Moreover, if their explanation is that they are a foreground, then that will likely exacerbate other anomalies that we will discuss in section IVB below. Our studies indicate that the observed alignments are with the ecliptic plane, with the equinox or with the CMB dipole, and not with the Galactic plane: the alignments of the quadrupole and octopole planes with the equinox/ecliptic/dipole directions are much more significant than those for the Galactic plane. Moreover, it is remarkably curious that it is precisely the ecliptic alignment that has been found on somewhat smaller scales using the power spectrum analyses of statistical isotropy.”6
In the Univ. of Michigan’s 2012 paper, there appears to be no deviation from their previous conclusions, although perhaps some hand‐wringing.
“We will discover that if one uses the full‐sky ILC map then one finds very odd correlations in the map, that correlate unexpectedly to the Solar System....Looking into this anomaly more deeply we will find that it remains robust through all seven years of published WMAP data...”
“...quadrupole planes and the three octopole planes, implying that not only are these four planes aligned but they are nearly perpendicular to the ecliptic. Furthermore the normals [perpendicular vectors] are near the dipole, meaning that the planes are not just aligned and perpendicular to the ecliptic but oriented perpendicular to the Solar System’s motion through the Universe....However one does the statistical analysis, these apparent correlations with the Solar System geometry are puzzling. They do not seem to reflect the Galactic contamination that we might have expected from residual foreground contamination in the ILC map....For one, the observed quadrupole and octopole are aligned....This makes it difficult to explain them in terms of some localized effect on the sky....The best one can say is that these full‐sky solar‐system correlations remain unexplained.”
The same team emphasizes several times in their paper that the CMB anisotropy does not match that which is predicted or accepted in the Big Bang model (much to the dismay of Karl Keating and Jimmy Akin, I’m sure):
“...and furthermore that it is very difficult to explain within the context of the canonical Inflationary Lambda Cold Dark Matter of cosmology [i.e., the Big Bang]....Our first observation is that none of those data curves look like the [LCDM] theory curve....It is extremely difficult to arrange for the Cl to have particular relative values in the context of the standard inflationary model...the observed sky, at least the part outside the Galaxy cut, seems not to respect the fundamental prediction of the standard cosmological model that the alm are independent random variables...for the lowest multipoles and the largest angular skies, the observations disagree markedly with the predictions of the [Big Bang] theory.”7
This is in contradiction to the predictions of standard inflationary cosmological theory. One is therefore placed between a rock and a hard place. If the WMAP ILC is a reliable reconstruction of the full‐sky CMB, then there is overwhelming evidence [de Oliveira‐Costa et al. (2004); Eriksen et al.(2004); Copi et al. (2004); Schwarz et al. (2004); Copi et al. (2006); Copi et al. (2007); Land & Magueijo (2005a,b,c,d); Raki ́c & Schwarz (2007); for a review see Huterer (2006)] of extremely unlikely phase alignments between (at least) the quadrupole and octopole and between these multipoles and the geometry of the Solar System — a violation of statistical isotropy that happens by random chance in far less than 0.025 per cent of random realizations of the standard cosmology. If, on the other hand, the part of the ILC (and band maps) inside the Galaxy are unreliable as measurements of the true CMB, then the alignment of low‐l multipoles cannot be readily tested, but the magnitude of the two‐point angular correlation function on large angular scales outside the Galaxy is smaller than would be seen in all but a few of every 10,000 realizations. We can only conclude that (i) we don’t live in a standard ΛCDM Universe with a standard inflationary early history; (ii) we live in an extremely anomalous realization of that cosmology; (iii) there is a major error in the observations of both COBE and WMAP; or (iv) there is a major error in the reduction to maps performed by both COBE and WMAP. Whichever of these is correct, inferences from the large‐angle data about precise values of the parameters of the standard cosmological model should be regarded with particular skepticism.8
As it stands, the 2013 data from the Planck probe rules out options ii, iii and iv for the Copi team and leaves them with option i, namely, “we don’t live in a standard ΛCDM Universe [Big Bang] with a standard inflationary early history.” I would suggest that Mr. Akin and Mr.
Keating pay a little more attention to what the literature is saying, rather than giving us the
knee‐jerk reactions we find on their blogs and reviews.
MacAndrew then states: “If you were an astronomical distance away from the Earth, you would not be able to use the CMB multipole vectors to navigate to it.” Navigate? That’s like saying Columbus didn’t discover America because he navigated to the Bahamas instead of Florida. If one were to follow the CMB by staring at the edge of the universe (where the CMB originates) and travel inward for 45 billion light years (the presently believed radius of the universe) and it got you to within 7 degrees or so of the Earth, don’t you think that would be a close enough “position” to conclude that you arrived at or near the center of the universe, especially since geocentrists hold that the Earth is geometrically off‐center? To arrive so close to the Earth when you started your journey some 45 billion light years away is astounding! MacAndrew can’t see it because he doesn’t want a geocentric universe. But as one of the participants in The Principle, George Ellis, said many years ago:
“I can construct [for] you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations. You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.”9
Akin then complains about something he thinks is common to all the participants in the film. He says:
“Parties on both sides of the question seemed to be harboring the idea that if the earth isn’t in a special place then mankind is nothing special....But what does any of this have to do with being ‘special’ in the sense of being at the center of the universe? Nothing. If God put the earth and mankind at the farthest point from the physical center of the universe (assuming the universe even has a physical center), none of the things that are special about them would change. This is simply fallacious reasoning. As many have recognized. But it’s the central—and fatal—fallacy of The Principle.”
Once again, in the sentence, “As many have recognized,” Akin puts a link to another of David Palm’s articles but fails to link to the rebuttal article we wrote to correct Mr. Palm’s dubious contentions (http://galileowaswrong.com/david‐palm‐peddles‐alien‐arguments‐ against‐geocentrism). This is just another indication that Akin simply doesn’t want the other side to be heard.
But let’s answer Mr. Akin’s objection, in any case. Yes, God could have put the Earth out in the remote recesses of space and given no signposts as to where we are. Indeed, atheists love it that way, because it gives them a much better chance to persuade the world that we are here by time and chance and there is no rhyme or reason to our existence. As the atheist Carl Sagan is quoted at the very beginning of The Principle: “We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost between two spiral arms in the outskirts of a galaxy which is a member of a sparse cluster of galaxies, tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.” Elsewhere Sagan confirms that a central location for the Earth is a curse for atheists like himself:
“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena....Our posturings, our imagined self‐importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there I see no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”10
Obviously, then, if God put the Earth in the center of the universe, it means that people like Carl Sagan cannot claim that it came by time and chance; they cannot claim that we are a lonely speck about which nobody cares. In short, they cannot escape Almighty God if the Earth is in the center, and they are keenly aware of these facts. An Earth in the center of the universe just screams significance and purpose and, most of all, a Creator that truly cares for us. Why Jimmy Akin, and his boss, Karl Keating, would be against such an astounding possibility is a very great puzzle. Don’t they realize that if the scientific evidence puts Earth back in the center of the universe this means the Catholic Church is well on her way to being vindicated from all the jeers and accusations that have been thrown at it for the past four centuries since the time of Galileo? Don’t they see that with this new information the whole world could literally change overnight as mankind finally comprehends that the God who put the Earth in the center is the same God who revealed it to his Church and created the universe? What better platform is there from which to evangelize the world?
The reticence of Keating and Akin reveals that there is more to this story than meets the eye. Hence, stay tuned for the Catholic version of Star Wars.
Robert Sungenis,
Executive Producer, The Principle
c/o Stellar Motion Pictures, LLC
7906 Santa Monica Blvd, #208
West Hollywood, CA 90046
November 19, 2014
Footnotes
1 http://jimmyakin.com
2 Einstein said: “The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either coordinate system could be used with equal justification. The two sentences: the sun is at rest and the Earth moves, or the sun moves and the Earth is at rest, would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different coordinate systems.” (The Evolution of Physics: From Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta, Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, 1938, 1966, p. 212).3 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1008.4456v2.pdf
4 “Is there a violation of the Copernican principle in radio sky,” Ashok K. Singal, Astronomy and Astrophysics Division, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, India, May 17, 2103, arXiv:1305.4134v1. Signal states: “We can rule out at a 99.995% confidence level the hypothesis that these asymmetries are merely due to statistical fluctuations.”
5 Ibid., pp. 1-2.
6 “Large-angle anomalies in the CMB,” Craig J. Copi, D. Huterer, D. Schwarz, and G. Starkman, Nov. 12, 2010, arXiv:1004.5602v2.
7 “The Oddly Quiet Universe: How the CMB Challenges Cosmology’s Standard Model,” Glenn D. Starkman, Craig J. Copi, Dragan Huterer, Dominik Schwarz, January 12, 2012, acXiv:1201.2459v1.
8 “No large-angle correlations on the non-Galactic microwave sky,” Craig J. Copi, Dragan Huterer, Domink Schwarz, and Glenn Starkman, MNRAS, 2008, republished August 13, 2013, arXiv: 0808.3767v2, p. 2.
9 “Profile: George F. R. Ellis,” W. Wayt Gibbs, Scientific American, October 1995, Vol. 273, No. 4, p. 55.
10 Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, 1977, p. 9. 16
