{"id":46246,"date":"2025-04-24T09:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T09:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/46246\/"},"modified":"2025-04-24T09:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T09:28:09","slug":"irishmans-universal-evolution-theory-challenges-accepted-cosmology-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/46246\/","title":{"rendered":"Irishman\u2019s universal evolution theory challenges accepted cosmology \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It all started with a big bang has been the commonly accepted origin story<\/a> of our universe for decades. But what if it\u2019s wrong? <\/p>\n

What if, before starting 13 billion years ago as a tiny ball of incomprehensibly hot gas exploding with unimaginable force and expanding eternally into an inexplicable nothingness, our universe evolved from another universe which in turn evolved from another?<\/p>\n

Julian Gough, the Irish author, playwright and one-time musician, has unveiled a cosmological theory he believes may better explain the origins of our universe than widely accepted theories. <\/p>\n

He admits there will be blowback for the \u201cblowtorch theory\u201d published on his cosmology website The Egg and the Rock<\/a> but is not fazed by the criticism that will come his way.<\/p>\n

The author, who wrote the last chapter of Minecraft<\/a> and whose novels have been published in 37 languages, has seen his website achieve a cult following driven by his successful prediction, before the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) sent back its first data in 2022, that it would observe extremely early, rapid galaxy formation, with those galaxies dominated by supermassive black holes. <\/p>\n

His predictions saw many scientists actively helping him to develop the new theory and attracted funding from Emergent Ventures (run by the economist and polymath Tyler Cowen<\/a>), and O\u2019Shaughnessy Ventures (run by the venture capital investor, quant pioneer, and former board chair of Stability AI, Jim O\u2019Shaughnessy<\/a>). <\/p>\n

His theory posits the idea that sustained, powerful jets from supermassive black holes in the extremely early universe \u201cactively carved the large-scale structure of the universe we see all around us today, including galaxies, cosmic voids, and filament\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"JulianJulian Gough: The Irish author, playwright and one-time musician believes his ‘blowtorch’ theory may better explain the origins of our universe than widely accepted theories. Photograph: Alan Betson\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

He said the JWST \u201chas shaken the faith of many cosmologists, astronomers and astrophysicists in their models\u201d adding that the telescope\u2019s observations \u201care causing ongoing chaos and I\u2019m the only guy who accurately predicted, at every stage, what it would see\u201d. <\/p>\n

Gough\u2019s blowtorch theory and the evolutionary cosmology is, he suggested, \u201cmore exciting and attractive right now than the mainstream theory, \u2018lambda cold dark matter\u2019, which, after 50 years of constant tweaking, still didn\u2019t see any of this coming\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0James Webb telescope finds its first exoplanet, raising hopes it will discover life elsewhere in universeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The blowtorch theory \u201cis a product of three-stage cosmological natural selection, or what we\u2019re now starting to call evolutionary cosmology\u201d, Gough said, that draws much from evolutionary biology and \u201chas huge explanatory and predictive power when applied to our universe\u201d.<\/p>\n

The core idea is that our universe evolved, in the Darwinian sense, and that it\u2019s descended from earlier, simpler universes, which reproduced through black holes. <\/p>\n

\u201cEvolution has therefore fine tuned our particular universe to produce, first, some supermassive black holes, which then generate stars and thus galaxies around themselves, which generate many more secondary, star-sized black holes but also the periodic table of the elements, which generate planets, which generate life, which generates technology, which generates huge numbers of small, technologically produced third-stage black holes (for extremely efficient, sustainable, long-term energy production),\u201d Gough said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach of these three evolved developmental steps helps the universe reproduce more efficiently, by generating more black holes \u2013 more offspring \u2013 from the same amount of matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

His conclusion is that \u201cbiology is the first half of the periodic table coming to life; technology is the second half of the periodic table coming to life in an evolved developmental process that helps the universe to reproduce\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe James Webb Space Telescope whose observations have ‘shaken the faith of many cosmologists, astronomers and astrophysicists in their models’, says Julian Gough. Photograph: Nasa <\/p>\n

According to Gough, the mainstream approach \u201chas always been, there is one universe, and everything that happens in it is random and arbitrary, and life is just this weird, unlikely accident\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut that mainstream approach has great difficulty explaining the extremely rapid, efficient, step-by-step development of our universe since the big bang, from a ball of hot gas to the hyper-sophisticated world we live in. And, unfortunately for the status quo, predictions based on evolutionary cosmology now massively outperform predictions made using the old approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some recent developments seem to be working in the theory\u2019s favour. Late last month, Nasa reported that an international team of astronomers using the JWST \u201cidentified bright hydrogen emission from a galaxy in an unexpectedly early time in the universe\u2019s history\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe surprise finding is challenging researchers to explain how this light could have pierced the thick fog of neutral hydrogen that filled space at that time,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Gough said the findings could be explained by an \u201cenormous jet from a supermassive black hole\u201d.<\/p>\n

Not everyone is convinced. One Irish-based scientist dismissed Gough\u2019s work out of hand: \u201cThis looks like crazy stuff to me and I wouldn\u2019t touch it with a barge pole.\u201d Others are far less dismissive. <\/p>\n

\n

We need a more open-minded dialogue between mainstream and unconventional lines of research to escape the dead end we manoeuvred ourselves into<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Dr Jenny Wagner<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dr Jenny Wagner, a German cosmologist, physicist and author based at the Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Helsinki, told The Irish Times Gough has developed \u201can interesting idea\u201d. <\/p>\n

She noted that standard observational cosmology collects evidence to track the evolution of the cosmos from the first picture we have, which, she argued, goes from \u201cthe rather homogeneous and isotropic cosmic microwave background to the highly complex landscape it has become with all its galaxy clusters, galaxies, stars, and planets\u201d.<\/p>\n

Wagner said it was possible to \u201conly observe and draw conclusions from the single universe we happen to live in. These are the huge drawbacks. It is like studying medicine on a single patient.\u201d<\/p>\n

She suggested the extremes of thinking were the anthropic principle, where \u201cthe universe is as it is because we are here to observe it, because we are special\u201d and the \u201cnihilistic answer that everything that is possible is actually created, so there should not be a single universe with fine-tuned conditions for life, but rather a multitude of universes (a multimultiverse) realising every possible scenario. <\/p>\n

\u201cBetween these extreme ends, the blowtorch theory assumes that there is an evolution of universes. Complexity increases with every step forward and builds upon the previous stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wagner said an \u201cintriguing part of the blowtorch theory stays at the level of observationally testable predictions in our cosmos: it raises highly important questions on the validity of our current concordance model in cosmology. For instance, do we really need dark matter to explain our observations? <\/p>\n

\"TheThe Tarantula Nebula star-forming region which lies about 170,000 light years from Earth. Photograph: European Southern Observatory <\/p>\n

Dark matter supposedly contributes 85 per cent of the total matter content of the universe. It is a single and elegant concept that can successfully explain many data sets from the cosmic microwave background to the non-linear structures we observe today.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, after more than half a century of dark-matter research, all we have is indirect evidence. Cern and other experiments like DAMA\/LIBRA, XENONnT or IceCube have not found any particle candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Euclid space telescope reveals exquisite images of dark universeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She said the problem \u201clies in the fact that the inconsistencies in our current data do not hint at specific alternative models. There are many ways to resolve the issues, as well. Hence, we need more blowtorches to shed light in a 95 per cent dark and mysterious cosmological model. In particular, we need a more open-minded dialogue between mainstream and unconventional lines of research to escape the dead end we manoeuvred ourselves into.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cl\u00e9ment Vidal, a philosopher at the Vrije University Brussels<\/a> in Belgium, said Gough \u201cpaints an accurate picture of the crisis in cosmological models, as they are having a hard time to accommodate new observational data from JWST\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said theories in cosmology \u201care in a dark age, and the present crisis deserves to be addressed with new thinking\u201d. <\/p>\n

He noted that previously Gough predicted using an evolutionary take on cosmology drawing on Lee Smolin\u2019s theory of cosmological natural selection that galaxies should form as early as 100 million years after the big bang. <\/p>\n

He said evolutionary theory and thinking have been \u201csuccessfully extended well beyond the biological realm, into culture, technology but also economics or psychology. Evolutionary cosmology continues this extension, and offers a new paradigm for cosmology. This is still early, and more effort is needed to further test new predictions, ideally with more detailed models making even more specific predictions, published in peer-reviewed articles so that more scientists can engage in this fascinating debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johannes Jaeger, an evolutionary biologist, systems thinker and philosopher based at the University of Vienna, said Gough\u2019s James Webb predictions \u201cshould stand as evidence that he is certainly no crackpot\u201d.<\/p>\n

He accepted that while \u201cevolutionary cosmology may be speculative at this point\u201d it could \u201ccontain the kind of explanation that could tell us why the parameters of the universe are fine tuned the way they are. At least, it seems to me, somebody in the physics community should be open to having a look at this theory\u201d, and while Gough\u2019s ideas \u201care no doubt speculative [they] are definitely worthy of checking out. Isn\u2019t this how science was meant to work?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It all started with a big bang has been the commonly accepted origin story of our universe for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3845],"tags":[1942,874,74,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-46246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-nasa","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}