BICEP2

No definitive evidence for cosmic inflation is found, but support remains strong for the theory even as critics highlight its shortcomings as an explanation for how and why the universe began.

The cosmologist David Spergel explains why a widely publicized gravitational-wave discovery could be wrong, and how the “overreaching” study could affect the public’s perception of science.

Chao-Lin Kuo, who helped design the experiment that claimed to have found evidence of gravitational waves from the Big Bang, isn’t bothered by criticism that cosmic dust may account for his results.