There a number of axioms on which our current model of the universe, history, and life are based on. Most people don’t know those beliefs nor whether they believe they are reasonable or not. So let’s take a look at a few and see what we see.

Charge Neutrality of Space: space acts as a perfect insulator preventing the flow of ions across interstellar space.

This is the foundation of gravity only cosmology – because even a partially ionized plasma behaves without regard to gravity. Over the last 20 years, mainstream science has identified gas columns and rivers (plasma filaments) and galactic scale magnetic fields. These directly falsify the belief that space is charge neutral. But scientists’ language and equations have not changed, because they either don’t believe it or haven’t bothered to figure out how that falsification changes things.

What it means is that galactic scale magnetic fields are indeed caused by the only known mechanism: electric current. It also explains galactic spin without dark matter, and provides an electrical explanation for how the sun is powered.

Uniformity: a doctrine or principle of the invariability or regularity of nature (Webster’s)

This axiom is how we infer interstellar distances, date the age of bodies in the solar system, carbon date fossils, and define geological eras.

The opposite side of this coin is called catastrophism, and happens to be my belief. Uniformity says Mars was slowly bombarded over billions of years, whereas we say it was a single or few catastrophic events. Uniformity and Catastrophism truly are axiomatic: you have to choose to believe them. That said, the fact that uniformitarians frequently invoke Catastrophism when their models break down (Big Bang, inflation, late heavy bombardment, punctuated evolution) tells me I ought to question that belief.

The primary reason we cling to Uniformity is that it gives us left-brained Westerners the perception of confidence in knowing things: how old this or that is, where we came from, what happened millions of year ago. But that isn’t a sound reason to believe something. Catastrophism recognizes that some conclusions might be imprecise because we will always lack information about the past. It also means, *gasp*, some things are unknowable.

Fundamental Forces: there are four fundamental forces that produce the effects in the universe.

We have observed a number of forces over the years that seem intrinsic to reality: the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and gravity. They are fundamental because we can’t find a cause for them to exist.

There are alternatives, but these four remain in vogue. The one that caught my eye is the Electric Universe model: it proposes that there’s only electromagnetism and the effects we see are a result of geometry or scale.

For example, the strong nuclear force is what holds protons together, in spite of the fact that everything we know says they should repel each other. But nuclei exist and we needed an explanation. We never considered a simple answer like boring old geometry. Have you ever built one of those metal ball and magnetic beam pyramids? What if nuclei are just stable geometric configurations of protons and electrons? No strong nuclear force required. Explains why neutrons decay quite rapidly (unbalanced because of the particle weights) and the source of radiation (unstable configurations which eventually break down to stable ones). What we observe is the same, just a different explanation, and voila!, no more strong nuclear force.

Relativity: Essentially, there is no absolute/universal time.

First, note the incompatibility with Uniformity, which relies on the opposite, that things are regular and consistent across the universe.

Relativity is actually a belief, despite what you think. The experiments conducted to test it support that belief, but they support other explanations too. You might also be interested to know that we haven’t detected the gravitational lensing we expected, and when we do it’s mostly blue shifted. (Observed lensing is most likely atmospheric refraction which would cause a consistent blue shift.) Just look at our observations of Sagittaris A* – a supposed super-massive black hole with no visible distortion to our observations of orbiting stars.

Relativity did away with the æther, the substance of the universe, in favor of spacetime. But it doesn’t play well with light as a wave (which requires a medium for propogation), giving rise to the dual particle-wave behavior we attribute to it so as to explain the dual slit experiment’s results and the fact it traverses empty space. Another quirk of relativity is black holes – nowhere else in science do we believe in a true manifestation of infinity.

I say all this not to tell you science is wrong (a tool can’t be right or wrong), but to warn you against the modern religious incarnation of “Science.” It attacks it’s detractors, excommunicates unbelievers, and does not tolerate free inquiry. Sounds a lot like the medieval church. Because it IS a religion. How many have heard or said “so and so doesn’t believe in science?” That is a statement of faith, or lack thereof.

A person can’t believe in science, anymore than they can believe in their car. It is a tool of our own creation to describe the universe. To say anything more is religion.

We need to recognize the difference between science and the unprovable, unfalsifiable beliefs that we hold which effect our interpretations. For starters, many of us just need to acknowledge that we have beliefs that impact how we use the tool of science.

Just because I don’t agree with mainstream axioms, doesn’t mean I am somehow unable to properly analyze data, conduct experiments, or think logically (the story of non-Euclidean geometry comes to mind). It just means I wield my hammer and interpret the results differently.

A final word of caution. Not distinguishing between beliefs and facts is exactly why conspiracy theorists flourish today. Their unreasonableness is an equal and opposite unreasonable response to religious Science. Religious Science denies the need for belief, and in opposition, conspiracies only have belief.