Universe - Parallel, Plasma, or dark matter

We can not discuss the probability of parallel universes without briefly touching on cosmology and the theories of what constitutes the universe.
Reference is made to the book by Eric Lerner called 'The big bang never happened' and this book is criticized on the following link http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/lerner_errors.html
By the way the book is not easy reading and far above my intellect but so interesting that you will read through the formulae, graphs and equations and enjoy the gist of it. The book was also published quite a while back although still very applicable. Scientists are mostly divided into opposing sides, those that believe in the existence of dark matter and dark energy (the existence of both of these has never been proven) and those that believe Newtons laws of physics do not apply to larger and further mass. Please forgive the numerous posts as my gateway does not allow too much to be uploaded and bombs out if I ramble on too long. So the next post will continue into dark matter...