  Recent results from the Planck satellite combined with earlier observations
from WMAP, ACT, SPT and other experiments eliminate a wide spectrum of more
complex inflationary models and favor models with a single scalar field, as
reported by the Planck Collaboration. More important, though, is that all the
simplest inflaton models are disfavored statistically relative to those with
plateau-like potentials. We discuss how a restriction to plateau-like models
has three independent serious drawbacks: it exacerbates both the initial
conditions problem and the multiverse-unpredictability problem and it creates a
new difficulty that we call the inflationary "unlikeliness problem." Finally,
we comment on problems reconciling inflation with a standard model Higgs, as
suggested by recent LHC results. In sum, we find that recent experimental data
disfavors all the best-motivated inflationary scenarios and introduces new,
serious difficulties that cut to the core of the inflationary paradigm.
Forthcoming searches for B-modes, non-Gaussianity and new particles should be
decisive.
