Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

Michael Mozina · Feb 24, 2009

temporalillusion said:
You pick on one specific example where it suits you.

Was there another example from one of the links that you believe is a better example that I should have used instead?

As I said there are entire disciplines of science that depend significantly on natural experiments.

I don't disagree with you, but that is only because it is possible to do so. In astronomy, where we have no effect as human beings, that isn't actually possible. All we can do is observe.

If you can't affect distant object, if you can't create your own control group, you manipulate your methodology to provide the necessary observations to isolate variables.

You're essentially attempting to manipulate the scientific method and do away with the need for a controlled experiment entirely. In some instances that may even be useful and acceptable, but you can't make up new forms of nature that way.

"Cause"? What causes anything?

Something "causes" everything to happen.

Inference is an important tool in science. No assuming is going on.

Your "inferences" seem to be different from mine, so some amount of subjectivity is clearly occurring between "observation" and "inferences" at the level of the individual.

We may not have such information now, but who knows what kinds of things will open up with a good theory of quantum gravity, or when we are able to detect gravity waves, or any number of other things. Not that it's necessary to know conditions "prior" to the big bang to infer inflation... if "prior" means anything at all (what's north of the north pole?).

Everything in nature, every interaction, every event is "caused" by something. Whatever happened to expand the universe, it is certain that there was a "cause" behind this event as well.

Michael Mozina · Feb 24, 2009

DeiRenDopa said:
I didn't get around to clicking on those links until now ...

... MM, you really are a hoot!

I write about the track record of the 34 initial signatories to the document you cite, in terms of published papers on SS, PC, and "observational contradictions of the big bang", and what do you say in your reply?

Why, you give a list of publications of Carl-Gunne Fälthammar (who is not one of those 34 signatories) and Hannes Alfvén, who died in 1995 ... nine years before the statement was published!!

I'm simply noting that those aren't the only folks that have complained about your theory and written papers on astronomy. Alfven was *a lot* more harsh in his criticisms than anyone on that list and he wrote many papers on that topic. I'm simply noting that while that particular list doesn't represent the sum total of your critics, nor does it represent the sum total of all the collective papers of your critics.

What was my hypothesis again? Oh yes, "that your use of language is so incoherent, and so inconsistent, that it is not possible to have a meaningful discussion with you." Hypothesis passes yet another empirical test.

More useless personal attacks. Yawn.

DeiRenDopa · Feb 24, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
[...]

temporalillusion said:

If you can't affect distant object, if you can't create your own control group, you manipulate your methodology to provide the necessary observations to isolate variables.

Click to expand...

You're essentially attempting to manipulate the scientific method and do away with the need for a controlled experiment entirely. In some instances that may even be useful and acceptable, but you can't make up new forms of nature that way.

[...]

Sure you can ...

... they're called "galaxies" and "supernovae" and "GRBs" and "AGNs" and ... and even "neutron stars". Each is most certainly a "new form of nature" and each is defined by following the most impeccable of scientific methods, empiricism.

Perpetual Student · Feb 24, 2009

DeiRenDopa said:
I remember that when I first learned that in GR gravity is not a force I was gobsmacked; it just didn't make sense! How could one of the four* fundamental forces of nature turn out to be not a force at all! Outrageous!!

I can see that and I had a similar reaction (I still do). The geometry of space being distorted by matter is a difficult concept and obviously a radical departure from being simply "pulled by gravity." However, one still feels a "force" when getting out of bed in the morning -- especially at my age!

If the hypothetical graviton were to be established, how does one avoid seeing gravity as a force again? I ask this because I see references to objects exchanging gravitons -- much like objects exchanging photons causes magnetic attraction, which sounds like we would be back to a force again for gravity. See how confusing this stuff is for a layman?

DeiRenDopa · Feb 24, 2009

Tubbythin: Its not my theory. If you can't understand that then I really can't be bothered to converse with you any more.

MM, stardate "today, 08:49 PM": "I hear you. It's an annoying habit. I'm sorry."

MM, stardate "today, 09:09 PM": "those aren't the only folks that have complained about your theory" (addressed to DRD in this case)

(bold added)

Old habits - particularly annoying ones? - seem to die rather hard, don't they?

sol invictus · Feb 24, 2009

Ziggurat said:
That last one isn't a mystery at all.

And the rest aren't necessarily scientific questions. Certainly they aren't part of Lambda-CDM, which is what this thread is supposed to be about.

Michael Mozina said:
Because you just put all the mass/energy of the whole physical universe into close proximity!

So?

Let's try a new angle here and you folks *explain* this theory of your, step by step.

This isn't a university. And you need much more remedial education than GR. If you politely ask specific questions, you may get answers. If you rant and rave and repeatedly demonstrate ignorance combined with arrogance, you'll get the responses you deserve.

Start with the size of this "thing" of yours. How big was it prior to "expansion"? What was it made of? Did it have Higg's bosons? If not, where did they come from?

You've got it backwards. You don't "start" from the big bang. You start from the universe as it is today. The laws of physics work just as well going back in time as they do going forwards. That means given the state today, one can determine the state at any time in the past - at least until the conditions become so extreme that the known laws of physics cannot be trusted.

So starting from today, run time backwards. The universe is expanding; therefore it was contracting going into the past. Because gravity is attractive, it contracts faster and faster, and gets denser and denser and hotter and hotter. The details of that are complicated, but the qualitative evolution is obvious - at some point it was extremely dense, extremely hot, and expanding very rapidly. We're pretty confident in the laws of physics up to about TeV energies, because we've tested them in accelerators. It turns out that the laws extrapolate nicely up to Planck-scale energies (about 10^16 TeV), so we can try to do that (and that's where inflation comes in). But we have no way of knowing what came before the time when the characteristic energy was Planckian - the known laws of physics break down entirely, and so we are certain there must be large corrections to them. Therefore questions about what "caused" the bang, or what came before, simply have no answer given what we know with reasonable certainty now.

DeiRenDopa · Feb 24, 2009

Perpetual Student said:
I can see that and I had a similar reaction (I still do). The geometry of space being distorted by matter is a difficult concept and obviously a radical departure from being simply "pulled by gravity." However, one still feels a "force" when getting out of bed in the morning -- especially at my age!
If the hypothetical graviton were to be established, how does one avoid seeing gravity as a force again? I ask this because I see references to objects exchanging gravitons -- much like objects exchanging photons causes magnetic attraction, which sounds like we would be back to a force again for gravity. See how confusing this stuff is for a layman?

I don't think anyone knows ... while some properties of 'the graviton' can be sketched, assuming such a thing exists as the carrier of gravity, by analogy with the photon and EM, there are just too many unknowns ... and, in the best empirical tradition, no way currently of testing any well-formulated hypotheses (though that may change any day now).

AFAIK, one set of theories that might unify GR and QM gives rise to entities like gravitons, but another set goes the other way and remakes all forces into something like geometry ... it's all very exciting, n'est pas?

Michael Mozina · Feb 24, 2009

DeiRenDopa said:
Tubbythin: Its not my theory. If you can't understand that then I really can't be bothered to converse with you any more.

MM, stardate "today, 08:49 PM": "I hear you. It's an annoying habit. I'm sorry."

MM, stardate "today, 09:09 PM": "those aren't the only folks that have complained about your theory" (addressed to DRD in this case)

(bold added)

Old habits - particularly annoying ones? - seem to die rather hard, don't they?

Evidently so.

Perpetual Student · Feb 24, 2009

DeiRenDopa said:
I don't think anyone knows ... while some properties of 'the graviton' can be sketched, assuming such a thing exists as the carrier of gravity, by analogy with the photon and EM, there are just too many unknowns ... and, in the best empirical tradition, no way currently of testing any well-formulated hypotheses (though that may change any day now).

AFAIK, one set of theories that might unify GR and QM gives rise to entities like gravitons, but another set goes the other way and remakes all forces into something like geometry ... it's all very exciting, n'est pas?

C'est vrai.

Michael Mozina · Feb 24, 2009

Perpetual Student said:
If the hypothetical graviton were to be established, how does one avoid seeing gravity as a force again?

It would be a "force" again in that instance, just a force that operates on curved objects in space. In essence your aversion to curved space theory could be with good cause.

Of course even if the math changes it back to a force again, it won't make it any easier for us to get out of bed.

Michael Mozina · Feb 24, 2009

sol invictus said:
So?

So last time I checked, gravity *attracts*. I've never once been able to jump off the planet.

This isn't a university. And you need much more remedial education than GR. If you politely ask specific questions, you may get answers. If you rant and rave and repeatedly demonstrate ignorance combined with arrogance, you'll get the responses you deserve.

I'm simply asking you to demonstrate your theory has merit and *qualify* as well as quantify your work. Why should I let you stuff DE or inflation into a GR formula when you've never established any cause/effect relationship?

You've got it backwards. You don't "start" from the big bang. You start from the universe as it is today.

The Alfven's bang wins hands down. His physical universe doesn't compress as far as yours does and it doesn't suffer from the same unanswered questions.

The laws of physics work just as well going back in time as they do going forwards.

Then all those Higgs particles will be attracting other Higgs particles the same way they do here on Earth today. The curvature of gravity will eventually form an event horizon around your mass object. How small was this thing anyway?

That means given the state today, one can determine the state at any time in the past - at least until the conditions become so extreme that the known laws of physics cannot be trusted.

Uh oh. You weren't going to start claiming that science no longer applies are you?

So starting from today, run time backwards. The universe is expanding; therefore it was contracting going into the past.

Yes, but how far does it contract?

Because gravity is attractive, it contracts faster and faster, and gets denser and denser and hotter and hotter. The details of that are complicated, but the qualitative evolution is obvious - at some point it was extremely dense, extremely hot, and expanding very rapidly.

I think that must be true in Alfven's model too, but again the amount of contraction seems to be variable depending on which "bang" model one uses.

What exactly makes current BB theory "better than" Alfven's version of events?

DeiRenDopa · Feb 24, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
[...]

What exactly makes current BB theory "better than" Alfven's version of events?

Ability to quantitatively account for:

* the observations of the CMB

* ditto, high-z SNe Ia

* ditto, large-scale structure (particularly this one!)

* ditto, BAO

* ditto, ...

In fact, we're in another lather-wash-rinse cycle ... IIRC, we went through all this on the PC woo or not thread, several months ago ...

Michael Mozina · Feb 24, 2009

DeiRenDopa said:
Sure you can ...

... they're called "galaxies"

Those are just collections of stars and matter as far as I know.

and "supernovae"

That's just an exploding star

and "GRBs" and "AGNs" and ... and even "neutron stars".

None of these require any new elements or particles to be present.

Each is most certainly a "new form of nature" and each is defined by following the most impeccable of scientific methods, empiricism.

Not one of your examples cannot be explained using ordinary *standard* particle physics theory. No new elements or particles are required, no new forms of energy are necessary, and there is nothing in them that cannot be gathered here on Earth. They are simply larger versions of what we already know physically exists inside our own solar system.

Compare and contrast that now with inflation which doesn't even exist in particle physics theory, and never will exist their either.

Michael Mozina · Feb 24, 2009

DeiRenDopa said:
Ability to quantitatively account for:

* the observations of the CMB

* ditto, high-z SNe Ia

* ditto, large-scale structure (particularly this one!)

* ditto, BAO

* ditto, ...

In fact, we're in another lather-wash-rinse cycle ... IIRC, we went through all this on the PC woo or not thread, several months ago ...

It seems to me that all of these claims are predicated upon a misconception about 'expansion of space' vs. "expansion of objects".
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0601171
http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.1970

These redshift observations are *not* necessarily related to anything other than pure doppler movement. Alfven's theories would most likely result in a surface of last scattering and as long as things were relatively uniform to start, I see no reason why it wouldn't be relatively uniformly distributed today. It requires no form of "inflation" and no forms of "dark energy".

Reality Check · Feb 24, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
Like? Please, be specific. What exactly would it take to convince you that inflation has been falsified once and for all?

You giving me a set of predictions from inflation and the observations that contriduict those predictions.

Michael Mozina · Feb 24, 2009

Reality Check said:
You giving me a set of predictions from inflation and the observations that contriduict those predictions.

The problem here is that every one of its current so called "predictions" are actually all postdicted from observation. More importantly the theory continues to be modified to fit every new "surprise" they have come across. Anything that may have been able to be used to 'falsify' the theory is simply ignored, and they just build a new theory to fit. Acceleration was something inflation theory failed to predict so they simply added dark energy. If it isn't homogeneously distributed like they expected, they just tweak a few variables and "viola", a new "matching prediction" is added to the list of "triumphs".

Hoy.

Perpetual Student · Feb 24, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
The problem here is that every one of its current so called "predictions" are actually all postdicted from observation. More importantly the theory continues to be modified to fit every new "surprise" they have come across. Anything that may have been able to be used to 'falsify' the theory is simply ignored, and they just build a new theory to fit. Acceleration was something inflation theory failed to predict so they simply added dark energy. If it isn't homogeneously distributed like they expected, they just tweak a few variables and "viola", a new "matching prediction" is added to the list of "triumphs".

Hoy.

On the surface this accusation appears to have merit. I have had similar thoughts as I have read of these new developments over the years. The problem is that there are no better theories. These are the best models theorists have come up with to explain astronomical observations that are consistent with modern physics.
The PC/EU theories you espouse appear to have fundamental flaws, as evidenced by the virtually universal rejection by specialists within the communities of cosmology, physics and astronomy. After following this debate for some time now, that has become all too obvious.

sol invictus · Feb 24, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
So last time I checked, gravity *attracts*. I've never once been able to jump off the planet.

That's because you didn't jump hard enough. Did you think your vertical leap was relevant to cosmology?

The Alfven's bang wins hands down. His physical universe doesn't compress as far as yours does and it doesn't suffer from the same unanswered questions.

I can't keep track of your shifting opinions, MM. A while back you said you believed in GR because it was experimentally verified. Then you flipflopped many times, and currently you're in a flop. OK.

Then all those Higgs particles will be attracting other Higgs particles the same way they do here on Earth today.

Not really. But yes, as I said, the force of gravity will accelerate the contraction (going back).

The curvature of gravity will eventually form an event horizon around your mass object. How small was this thing anyway?

No. The universe is homogeneous on large scales - there's no center. As you go back in time it gets more homogeneous, but also more dense. So no black holes form.

Uh oh. You weren't going to start claiming that science no longer applies are you?

What?

Yes, but how far does it contract?

As I said, there is nothing in the known laws of physics to stop the contraction. However, at some point the conditions get too extreme for us to trust the known laws of physics. At and before that time, in principle anything could have happened. Of course there are various theories about that, but all of them are speculative.

What exactly makes current BB theory "better than" Alfven's version of events?

It's consistent with data. His isn't. Therefore his is wrong, and the BB might be right.

sol invictus · Feb 24, 2009

Perpetual Student said:
On the surface this accusation appears to have merit. I have had similar thoughts as I have read of these new developments over the years.

That's because only the surprising developments get reported. Every day, hundreds of telescopes scan the skies, collecting data and improving our knowledge of the universe. Every single photon they collect is a test of the BB theory, and it almost always passes unscathed. Occasionally - extremely rarely - it fails in some aspect, and must be modified or discarded.

That's how science works. That's the process that lead to the BB theory in the first place - remember, almost every physicist believed in a steady-state universe about 100 years ago. But the evidence, which is overwhelming, forced them to change their minds. Since then there have been many surprises, many changes to the model, as data improved and details became clear. But the fundamental idea underlying it - which is simply GR plus the redshift-distance relation - has not changed. And that's the underlying characteristic of a successful theory: rare and gradual refinements leading to increased accuracy, but almost every day-to-day test passed.

Contrast to PC or an earth-centered solar system with epicycles. Those are wrong theories - they fail almost every new observation.

Michael Mozina · Feb 24, 2009

Perpetual Student said:
On the surface this accusation appears to have merit. I have had similar thoughts as I have read of these new developments over the years. The problem is that there are no better theories.

The problem of course is that inflation doesn't actually work either without 96% fudge factor. The notion of "better" in this case is evidently *highly* subjective. "Dark energy" isn't even actually "explained", it's just stuffed in there in a highly ad hoc, physically undefined manner. For all they know DE is actually nothing more than an EM field and it's ultimately going to morph into an EU theory over time anyway.

These are the best models theorists have come up with to explain astronomical observations that are consistent with modern physics.

But Lambda-CMD theory is absolutely NOT consistent with "modern physics". Inflation doesn't exist in modern physics, nor does dark energy. The only useful function of inflation and DE in fact is to prop up this otherwise one dead cosmology theory. In no way is their theory consistent with physics, in fact it's based on only 4% actual physics and 96% non standard physics and 3 different giant leaps of faith.

The PC/EU theories you espouse appear to have fundamental flaws, as evidenced by the virtually universal rejection by specialists within the communities of cosmology, physics and astronomy.

Chapman probably said the same thing about Birkeland's theories and he probably lived his whole life and even died believing that his own theories were "better". The mainstream can't even explain solar wind, jets, coronal loops and sustained aurora to this day, and yet Birkeland simulated all of these things in his experiments and actually most of them are real "predictions' that came from real experiments, not that postdicted nonsense that mainstream relies upon. Their theories are useless. Birkeland's theories are not.

After following this debate for some time now, that has become all too obvious.

Well, I was never naive about that point. Unfortunately/fortunately appeals to popularity fallacies were never very convincing to me personally. Empirical physics is convincing to me however and that is why am am attracted to Birkeland's work, even more so than Alfven's work actually.

Perpetual Student · Feb 25, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
Well, I was never naive about that point. Unfortunately/fortunately appeals to popularity fallacies were never very convincing to me personally. Empirical physics is convincing to me however and that is why am am attracted to Birkeland's work, even more so than Alfven's work actually.

"Popularity" in science has had its ups and downs. Someone here said a few days ago "science is not a democracy." Actually, that is not true in one sense. What constitutes "correct science" in any era is that set of ideas a strong consensus of specialists holds to be true.
So, for nearly two thousand years we had the epicycles of Ptolemy instead of Aristarchus' heliocentric theory. A wrong idea was the "correct science" for 100 generations even though someone else got it right in the first place!
I would offer the point, however, that in contrast, today's science is subject to rigorous worldwide scrutiny on a continuing basis. If anyone could demonstrate the flaws in a prevailing theory and offer a good alternative, that person would get a lot of attention and ultimate vindication and would win the next "correct science" election by a landslide.

Michael Mozina · Feb 25, 2009

sol invictus said:
That's because only the surprising developments get reported. Every day, hundreds of telescopes scan the skies, collecting data and improving our knowledge of the universe. Every single photon they collect is a test of the BB theory, and it almost always passes unscathed. Occasionally - extremely rarely - it fails in some aspect, and must be modified or discarded.

Inflation theory never been "discarded" and it never will be. It's always "modified to fit" and it was a curve fitting postdiction effort to begin with.

And that's the underlying characteristic of a successful theory: rare and gradual refinements leading to increased accuracy, but almost every day-to-day test passed.

Except you aren't talking about "gradual refinements", you made dark energy 75 percent of your theory in one revision! That's not "gradual refinement", that a complete overhaul.

Contrast to PC or an earth-centered solar system with epicycles. Those are wrong theories - they fail almost every new observation.

Bull. PC theory is nothing like an earth-centric solar system theory. Whereas every one of your actual predictions was falsified and then grossly overhauled, PC theory actually "predicted" (in actually empirical experiments) all the key solar observations you still can't explain to this day. Inflation is dead. Electricity exists in nature in great abundance and it manifests itself just as Birkeland 'predicted'.

Lambda-CMD theory is however a lot like the epicycles theories of the past because it requires constant introduction of extra stuff to keep in afloat and it's a completely posticted effort based on a "prophetic" assumption, just like epicycles theories.

Michael Mozina · Feb 25, 2009

Perpetual Student said:
I would offer the point, however, that in contrast, today's science is subject to rigorous worldwide scrutiny on a continuing basis.

The problem of course is that since inflation is presumably gone, not one person in the whole world will ever be able to actually demonstrate inflation in a normal standard manner. It will forever be an act of faith with a worldwide pool of mathematicians to continue to fudge the numbers to fit anything new they find.

If anyone could demonstrate the flaws in a prevailing theory and offer a good alternative, that person would get a lot of attention and ultimate vindication and would win the next "correct science" election by a landslide.

I'm very confident that will PC/EU theory will win out over time. For one thing, it actually has some hope of producing useful consumer products whereas inflation will certainly never show up in a useful consumer product.

Greed and scientific progress will eventually enable PC/EU theory to win the endurance race IMO. It took the mainstream 60 years to abandon Chapman's "math only' ideas and embrace a *few* of Birkeland's experimental theories. Maybe it will take them another 100 years for all I know to accept his other ideas. Sooner or later however it's bound to happen. It's certainly no mystery to me why the solar wind accelerates as it leaves the sun. Birkeland explained that to me already. That is true of 'jets' and loops as well. Sooner or later we'll learn to surf those electrical currents running between the sun and the heliosphere and then Lambda-Gumby theory will eventually die a natural death. Unfortunately I'll probably be dead by then, just as Birkeland was dead by the time the mainstream accepted even a part of his theories.

I have no practical use for inflation today. It's dead. If it ever was a part of science, it isn't now a part of empirical science and therefore it has no practical use to science other than to prop up *one specific* cosmology theory that is build on no less than three different forms of metaphysics. IMO that is a sure sign it has no useful purpose at all.

Michael Mozina · Feb 25, 2009

sol invictus said:
That's because only the surprising developments get reported. Every day, hundreds of telescopes scan the skies, collecting data and improving our knowledge of the universe. Every single photon they collect is a test of the BB theory, and it almost always passes unscathed.

This should be considered false advertising. It's got a 100 percent failure rate, including those "dark flows" you are now simply in denial of.

Michael Mozina · Feb 25, 2009

sol invictus said:
That's because you didn't jump hard enough. Did you think your vertical leap was relevant to cosmology?

Gravity is relevant to every cosmology theory. It's *attractive* not repulsive in nature.

Not really. But yes, as I said, the force of gravity will accelerate the contraction (going back).

Then it should *DECELERATE* with expansion.

No. The universe is homogeneous on large scales - there's no center. As you go back in time it gets more homogeneous, but also more dense. So no black holes form.

Pure dodge.

As I said, there is nothing in the known laws of physics to stop the contraction.

Except of course the one Alfven used.

It's consistent with data. His isn't. Therefore his is wrong, and the BB might be right.

This is so wrong it's pathetic. Not only is your theory of choice *not* right by default, it's not even consistent with the data or your statements.

Those dark flows aren't predicted in your theory. That acceleration process goes against everything you just said about running the process backwards too! In Lambda theory, as things contract things will start to slow down due to the influence of your invisible friend dark energy. You have the whole thing so kludged together with metaphysics even you cannot rewind the process and keep it straight in your head anymore.

Dancing David · Feb 25, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
Was there another example from one of the links that you believe is a better example that I should have used instead?

I don't disagree with you, but that is only because it is possible to do so. In astronomy, where we have no effect as human beings, that isn't actually possible. All we can do is observe.

You're essentially attempting to manipulate the scientific method and do away with the need for a controlled experiment entirely. In some instances that may even be useful and acceptable, but you can't make up new forms of nature that way.

You again are engaging in political hyperbole. I can think of one major area of study that is based solely upon observation and is instrumental in the neurosciences.

Mental illness and the biological predispostion to have a mental illness.

Lets us see, during WWII and the Great Depression there was considerable famine and poverty. Retropspective studies of people (mothers and adult children) who were malnurished during the second trimester showed an increase in children who develooped schizophrenia 15-20 years later.
The same is true of febrile diseases during the second trimester and is supported by the seasonal effect is schizophrenia.

These two studies in Europe were totaly retropspective there was no intervention (and there often is not in heart disease studies either, so you are often wrong). It was done through demographic analysis and interviews in Denmark (I don't really remember).

Then also in Denmark and some other countries there are the twin studies, totally retropsective again, and which of the twins develops schizophrenia and which doesn't. This why there is now beleived to be a high biological predisposition to schizophrenia, due to the fact that the twins did not share environments in some samples and did in others.

The same is true of heart disease, cancer and environmental toxins.(And hundreds of others) All are done in either retrospective or longitudinal stuides. All are done without laboratory 'controls' they are done with the statistical controls that Arp does not use. They are valid, informative and robust.

But please continue to misrepresent science.

And yes they can be blinded before you start that nonsense. You should really learn before you shoot your mouth off, you could make a coherent argument if you avoided your silly bombast.

You are so wrong you aren't even in the ball park, you are so wrong you just look silly. There are hundreds of areas and tens of thousands of studies that use these methods.

So please stop your nonsense, it does not help you at all.

sol invictus · Feb 25, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
Pure dodge.

You're obviously not interested in the answers to the questions you asked, so there's no point in responding further.

The fact that matter clusters more and more as time passes is the most basic fact in cosmology. You don't understand the theory you criticize at the level of a first year physics student, you won't learn, and you won't listen to anything anyone says.

You're a troll.

Reality Check · Feb 25, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
The problem here is that every one of its current so called "predictions" are actually all postdicted from observation. More importantly the theory continues to be modified to fit every new "surprise" they have come across. Anything that may have been able to be used to 'falsify' the theory is simply ignored, and they just build a new theory to fit. Acceleration was something inflation theory failed to predict so they simply added dark energy. If it isn't homogeneously distributed like they expected, they just tweak a few variables and "viola", a new "matching prediction" is added to the list of "triumphs".

Hoy.

I am still waiting for your evidence that "every one of its current so called "predictions" are actually all postdicted from observation".
I suspect that you are right but that does not invalidate inflation - that just makes it into an unconfirmed scientific theory.

You are still ignorant of the fact that inflation has nothing to do with the acceleration & dark energy. Or maybe you have just renamed the Big Bang Theory yet again?
Is it "Big Bang Theory" == "Lambda-CDM Theory" == "Inflation Theory" == the next thing that MM thinks of?

temporalillusion · Feb 25, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
Was there another example from one of the links that you believe is a better example that I should have used instead?

Other than entire disciplines of science?

How about the stellar evolution I thought up?

Michael Mozina said:
I don't disagree with you, but that is only because it is possible to do so. In astronomy, where we have no effect as human beings, that isn't actually possible. All we can do is observe.

As I said in trials of a life saving drug you can't control, you can only observe. In economics you can't control (well someone is controlling, but they're part of the experiment). Psychology, sociology, geology, paleontology. How do I determine the composition of the earth's atmosphere 3 billion years ago? I can't even do direct observation there.

Michael Mozina said:
You're essentially attempting to manipulate the scientific method and do away with the need for a controlled experiment entirely. In some instances that may even be useful and acceptable, but you can't make up new forms of nature that way.

I never said that, I'm saying the scientific method isn't exclusively controlled experiments. If it was then there wouldn't be methods created for describing the reliability of experiments that aren't controlled.

Michael Mozina said:
Something "causes" everything to happen.

Sorry, I meant that more philosophically.. what is space, what is time, what is the strong force.. science isn't about describing the substance of these things, that's more of a philosophical discussion. Science is concerned with theories and models and how things behave.

Michael Mozina said:
Your "inferences" seem to be different from mine, so some amount of subjectivity is clearly occurring between "observation" and "inferences" at the level of the individual.

If you mean that the human factor can influence things, that's very true, but that's part of the scientific endeavor is to remove those things.

sol invictus · Feb 25, 2009

Reality Check said:
I am still waiting for your evidence that "every one of its current so called "predictions" are actually all postdicted from observation".
I suspect that you are right but that does not invalidate inflation - that just makes it into an unconfirmed scientific theory.?

It's not right - it's completely wrong.

sol invictus said:
So the predictions of inflation are a near-perfect blackbody spectrum for CMB photons, a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of primordial density perturbations, a particular and very characteristic pattern of peaks and valleys in the spectrum of temperature fluctuations (as a function of angle) in the CMB sky, a particular spectrum for the galaxy and galaxy cluster distribution, and spatial curvature which is very close to zero. Every single one of those predictions has been born out by three or four generations of increasingly sensitive experiments (and at the same time the predictions of every competing theory have been falsified). As a result, inflation is now accepted by the majority of cosmologists as the best theory of the very early universe.

Essentially none of those predictions had been seen when inflation was proposed. The theory has not changed significantly since then, but every single one has been verified by several independent experiments.

Michael Mozina · Feb 25, 2009

Dancing David said:
Lets us see, during WWII and the Great Depression there was considerable famine and poverty. Retropspective studies of people (mothers and adult children) who were malnurished during the second trimester showed an increase in children who develooped schizophrenia 15-20 years later.

But even in such studied you have the ability to ask questions of real people, find out who was malnourished, etc. Again, you have a real and specific physical change "malnourishment", caused by human activity, being traced to a human disease. All of these things involved real known physical changes to real known physical people. The ability of humans to convey direct information to other humans plays a major role in these studies and all of them take place here on Earth where the variables are changed by human beings in most cases.

You're still not doing "experiments", your just taking "measurements", unless of course the stars are talking to you and giving you specific information about their past.

It is not "nonsense" to expect you to be able to empirically demonstrate your claim in a real physical way. The fact you cannot do so, does not make my argument nonsense, it makes your argument nonsense. I'm interested in empirical physics, not pure leaps of faith in non existent entities that have no material affect on the real world.

All of the "natural experiments" you mention are done *here on Earth*, mostly involving human beings that can communicate with each other, affect one another, and study one another up close and personal. You can do that with distant stars.

Michael Mozina · Feb 25, 2009

sol invictus said:
You're obviously not interested in the answers to the questions you asked, so there's no point in responding further.

I am interested in real answers, but you avoided my question. I asked you it's original "size" prior to the "bang". Care to answer the specific question with specific answers?

The fact that matter clusters more and more as time passes is the most basic fact in cosmology.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2458/which-came-first-galaxy-or-black-hole

When you say that things *must* work one way or the other, I can tell you from just watching the changes in this industry for the last 30+ years, that simply isn't so.

You don't understand the theory you criticize at the level of a first year physics student, you won't learn, and you won't listen to anything anyone says.

You're a troll.

I'm not a troll. I'm willing to listen to a rational explanation of your theory. I will say "your theory" at some point because I've come to realize that everyone has very specific and individually unique beliefs when we look at them in detail. I've noticed that some astronomers get squeamish about inflation. Some are big time advocates of inflation. Some aren't sure about the size of the universe prior to the bang, nor do they all agree on exact timelines. In fact that has been another of those things that gets rewritten all the time. I've seen a lot of changes in my lifetime and a lot of individual variety in beliefs. I can't read your mind, so I asked you some simple questions. When I ask your for specifics I get the run around. Why is that?

Michael Mozina · Feb 25, 2009

temporalillusion said:
Other than entire disciplines of science?

How about the stellar evolution I thought up?

Um, unfortunately I'm not a big fan of standard solar theory either, so I'm afraid you'll have to think of a better example. I think they made some of the same mistakes there actually.

As I said in trials of a life saving drug you can't control, you can only observe. In economics you can't control (well someone is controlling, but they're part of the experiment). Psychology, sociology, geology, paleontology. How do I determine the composition of the earth's atmosphere 3 billion years ago? I can't even do direct observation there.

All of these things are studies of events on Earth where we do have some element of control in the case of work with human beings, or where we have some ability to directly manipulate the environment to for instance dig up fossils and so on. Again, humans can't travel outside of the solar system, so we really don't have any ability to even take an real in-situ measurements.

I never said that, I'm saying the scientific method isn't exclusively controlled experiments.

Even your natural experiments included controlled variables, just like that smoking ban.

If it was then there wouldn't be methods created for describing the reliability of experiments that aren't controlled.

The are not being directly controlled at that moment, but as in the case of the smoking ban example, there was a specific variable that was "controlled" if only in the past.

If you mean that the human factor can influence things, that's very true, but that's part of the scientific endeavor is to remove those things.

But therein lies the rub. If we had real "experiments" that demonstrated inflation exists in nature, my skepticism of inflation would not exist. Without such experiments and without control mechanisms I have no way to isolate any sort of "cause" of distant events.

The fact I can never hope to *ever* see an experiment involving inflation means that it necessitates a complete act of faith on my part in your personal interpretation of some data, or some "collective" interpretation of the data, and it becomes impossible verify the idea or falsify the idea. It's far closer to religion than to "science" because it requires pure faith in something that I can never hope to actually demonstrate in an empirical way. No other branch of science needs or predicts inflation. The only theory that depends on it is one cosmology model. IMO that is a clear sign that there is a problem with that one theory.

Tim Thompson · Feb 25, 2009

What is Science?

DeiRenDopa said:
Here's my working hypothesis: MM has a very different view of what modern cosmology, as a science, is than almost everyone else who has posted to this thread. If that's the case, I'd like to take this thread in somewhat of a different direction and focus on what MM's view of modern cosmology, as a science, is. In particular, I'd like to examine the extent to which it is internally consistent and the evidence there is that it employs critical thinking.

I have not seen any follow-up to the extensive posts from DeiRenDopa, but this is a point I really think needs to be explored. We really do seem to be straining over very different views of what "science" really is, or perhaps more appropriately, how science is really supposed to be done.

It seems to me that Mozina has an extremely restrictive view of how science should be done: "Anything that cannot be done in a controlled laboratory experiment is not science" certainly seems to be his fundamental view of how science should be done.

So, Michael, query: Tell us what you think "science" is, how you think it should be done. Is astronomy "science"? After all, virtually nothing that astronomers observe can be replicated in a laboratory. And astronomical observations are not controlled laboratory experiments, so do they count as "scientific" observations? I want to pin down a specific reason, or some specific reasons, with an emphasis on specific, why modern cosmology is not science.

temporalillusion · Feb 25, 2009

Your requirements for what qualifies as real science differs from others.. They've provided tons of evidence but you reject it outright, ultimately based on this difference maybe?

If that's the case, I would say this is an impasse.

EDIT: Ooops, just restating what's already being talked about lol.

Michael Mozina · Feb 25, 2009

Reality Check said:
I am still waiting for your evidence that "every one of its current so called "predictions" are actually all postdicted from observation".

Which specific observation do you believe was an actual "prediction" that was actually accurate before something was actually "measured" in advance? If you claim the CMBR temp was actually predicted accurately I'm going to point out that this prediction was off by at least a factor of 10.

I suspect that you are right but that does not invalidate inflation - that just makes it into an unconfirmed scientific theory.

Put yourself in my shoes for just one moment. I've watch the current theory morph from what was once a pretty reasonable theory to one that has been stuffed with so many variables I can never hope to verify or falsify that it has become useless IMO. It's completely postdicted from observation, and there isn't any key prediction that has held up to close scrutiny, not ever. I can't personally put any faith in the idea at all. It's just a big curve fitting exercise with 96 percent fudge factor and 4% physics, and only 4% of the theory is even "testable" here on Earth.

You are still ignorant of the fact that inflation has nothing to do with the acceleration & dark energy.

I am not ignorant of the distinction, I just don't happen to believe in either one of them. DE can already be replace with an EM field, but that would put Lambda-CDM theory dangerously close to EU/PC territory, and therefore the resistance to that idea is intense. Inflation would still be Lambda's Achilles heal and you'd ultimately be left with pure EU/PC over time.

http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.1970

Michael Mozina · Feb 25, 2009

Tim Thompson said:
I have not seen any follow-up to the extensive posts from DeiRenDopa, but this is a point I really think needs to be explored. We really do seem to be straining over very different views of what "science" really is, or perhaps more appropriately, how science is really supposed to be done.

It seems to me that Mozina has an extremely restrictive view of how science should be done: "Anything that cannot be done in a controlled laboratory experiment is not science" certainly seems to be his fundamental view of how science should be done.

That is actually more of a strawman than an accurate reflection of my statements.

So, Michael, query: Tell us what you think "science" is, how you think it should be done. Is astronomy "science"? After all, virtually nothing that astronomers observe can be replicated in a laboratory. And astronomical observations are not controlled laboratory experiments, so do they count as "scientific" observations? I want to pin down a specific reason, or some specific reasons, with an emphasis on specific, why modern cosmology is not science.

http://teacher.pas.rochester.edu/phy_labs/appendixe/appendixe.html

Here's how I explained why it's woo earlier in the thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4455764&postcount=559

Michael Mozina · Feb 25, 2009

temporalillusion said:
Your requirements for what qualifies as real science differs from others..

I would suggest you checkout that first link I gave to Tim in the previous post. I'm simply practicing the standard scientific method, to the letter. I'm not making exceptions for PC theory or Lambda theory.

They've provided tons of evidence but you reject it outright, ultimately based on this difference maybe?

Probably.

If that's the case, I would say this is an impasse.

Perhaps so, I'm not sure. I have no way to verify that inflation even exists. It would appear it is a completely postdicted math formula variable that has no application in any scientific theory, except one specific cosmology theory. Why should I put any faith in something that I'm sure doesn't exist today, and has a 100 percent failure rate when it comes to making accurate predictions with it? I don't get it. It's a "faith" oriented belief that is a "subjective" interpretation of the observation of redshifted photons.

temporalillusion · Feb 25, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
I would suggest you checkout that first link I gave to Tim in the previous post. I'm simply practicing the standard scientific method, to the letter. I'm not making exceptions for PC theory or Lambda theory.

I replied to that link the first time you posted it; it's hardly exhaustive on the subject of scientific method, hence the title "Introduction".

Tim Thompson · Feb 25, 2009

Testing Inflation

Michael Mozina said:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.1970

What is the point of citing this paper? I don't get it.

Michael Mozina said:
Here's how I explained why it's woo earlier in the thread: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4455764&postcount=559

Michael Mozina said:
http://teacher.pas.rochester.edu/phy_labs/appendixe/appendixe.html

Note that the necessity of experiment also implies that a theory must be testable. Theories which cannot be tested, because, for instance, they have no observable ramifications (such as, a particle whose characteristics make it unobservable), do not qualify as scientific theories.

Click to expand...

Here's where your dead inflation deity failed to qualify as a "scientific" theory. It's not observable. I can't test it. Unlike any ordinary religious deity, I can't ever even hope to verify it. It's the ultimate in pathetic, impotent, useless deities.

Inflation is a testable hypothesis. Your assertion to the contrary, as an excuse for declaring it unscientific is a factually false statement. See, i.e., Mikheeva, 20008; Lesgourgues & Valkenburg, 2007; Alabidi & Lyth, 2006; Lidsey & Seery, 2006 ... Liddle, 1999.

Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

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