The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, 'Seek simplicity and distrust it.' I like that. But simply allowing my train of association to chug along its own tracks, this thought about science brings me to the issue of cosmogony, and the issue of the apparent demise of the old steady state theory of the cosmos. The great motivating factor of the theory was the immensity of infinity, the infinite expanse that opened in the past and presumably too in the future. The contrary Big Bang theory, with its definite moment of beginning and its threat of a heat death of the whole-she-bang, cuts one off from that lovely prospect. Also, relatedly, the Big Bang is sometimes defended as a way in which something might have come out of nothing, and THAT is a strongly counte...
