  Recent results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe have been called
a corroboration, or even a confirmation, of inflation. Yet, the results include
features that require, at least, a significant distortion of what is usually
meant by inflation. At the same time, critics have leveled the charge that
inflation is an arbitrarily pliable theory and is therefore beyond proof or
disproof. This startling dissonance in attitudes toward inflation seems to have
grown out of the lack of a clear framework with which to evaluate the
inflationary paradigm. In this rhetorical pamphlet we reexamine the
inflationary paradigm, attempt to articulate explicitly how the paradigm and
its descendant models are falsifiable, and make a sober assessment of the
successes and failures of inflation.
