Jim, you're right, we have only models. And Big Bangers tell you that if you ask them. But they forget about that if you don't ask them. You'll never read: Martin Rees told reporters: "If all our theoretical assumtions and interpretations of observations are correct, then there should be a reionization era." Or ripples in the CMB, a first generation of stars, or whatever you want. You always read: Martin Rees told reporters: "10 million years after the reionization era ..." "The first stars emerged 200 million years after the Big Bang." And so on. That is the problem. The public gets (and that's what they want!)the firm impression, that there is knowledge (truth), not models. Look at textbooks (I'm German, but I don't think that's much different in the US, or is it?). My Boys learn (by teacher and textbook) that there was a Big Bang 15 billion years ago, and so on. The newspapers have it like that, TV productions tell it like that. And that is not a simple theoretical problem, because anybody gets used to this theory as fact. And that has tremendous implications of the way people think about the world they live in, about what the world is and what they are. It makes a big difference whether you feel you are living in a world which started with an explosion from nothing and is going to die in a Big Crunch or an eternal wimp. Or if you think within the frame of an eternal universe which is permanently refreshed by newly created matter and which goes through cycle after cycle, thus creating new worlds and new opportunities without end. It has subtle implications for the way we look at everything although we do not recognize it. (Look at other fields: Even in politics and economics and sports and fashion they are using the term "Big Bang"! Goog work, Martin Rees!)
-hans-
