Högskolan i Skövde

Debates about underdetermination and interpretation—familiar from the philosophy of quantum mechanics—may also offer valuable insights for evaluating alternative cosmological frameworks. Bohm (1952) argued that the usual ‘Copenhagen’ interpretation of quantum theory is unfalsifiable not because it is empirically empty, but because its assumptions leave the mathematical formalism free to absorb any anomaly through ad hoc modifications. His response was not to argue that Copenhagen was false but to construct a hidden-variables alternative reproducing its predictions—showing, by existence rather than argument, that Copenhagen’s commitments were never forced by the data. We ask whether an analogous situation might be emerging in cosmology. The Dynamic Universe (DU) model of Suntola (2026) offers a candidate: from two postulates it reproduces several ΛCDM (standard model of Big Bang cosmology’s) predictions without dark energy or inflation, and with fewer parameters, while predicting a monotonic angular-size–redshift relation that recent JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) data appear to favour over ΛCDM’s non-monotonic one. We argue the Bohmian parallel is instructive but partial: DU’s equivalence with ΛCDM remains undemonstrated in domains—the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) spectrum, nucleosynthesis, gravitational waves—where ΛCDM’s evidence is strongest. Nonetheless, we suggest such rivals warrant continued attention precisely for what their partial success reveals about the mainstream view’s contingency.