Split Thread Describing the universe

brantc

Muse
brantc
Joined
Feb 14, 2009
Messages
541
dasmiller said:
Unfortunately, I have no doubt that within the next day or so, someone will be posting on the JREF Forum claiming that this image proves, once and for all, that (select all that apply)
- the speed of light has been decreasing over time
- the big bang never happened
- there was no inflation
- general relativity is wrong
- special relativity is wrong
- there is no such thing as dark matter
- there is no such thing as dark energy
- redshift is not due to the Doppler effect
- Earth is at a 'special' location in the universe
- stars are powered by electric currents
- galaxies are held together by magnetic fields
- GRB sources are within our galaxy
- life on Earth originated elsewhere
- the rest of the universe is uninhabited
- the universe was tailored for life by an external intelligence
Click to expand...

Wow, you sure have a narrow humanistic view of the universe.

Any of those things could be proven wrong(or right) at anytime.

The Big Bangers think the earth is at a special location in the universe. Except for the ones that think space is expanding onto into around below above itself.

So do believe in QM gravitons, or Relativity's bent space, model of gravity??

Posted By: Gaspode
 
Last edited by a moderator:
brantc said:
The Big Bangers think the earth is at a special location in the universe. Except for the ones that think space is expanding onto into around below above itself.
Click to expand...
Totally wrong.
  • The Big Bang theory includes the premise that the Earth is not at a special location in the universe. This is the cosmological principle.
  • No "Big Banger" thinks that space is expanding into anything "around below above itself".
    The universe is not expanding into anything. By definition the universe is everything.
 
brantc said:
Wow, you sure have a narrow humanistic view of the universe.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry, weren't you the one just claiming that the whole of physics should be understandable based on experiments that can be performed in the lab?

Any of those things could be proven wrong(or right) at anytime.
Click to expand...
No, some of them have already been proven wrong.

The Big Bangers think the earth is at a special location in the universe.
Click to expand...
In this respect, you could not possibly be more wrong.

Except for the ones that think space is expanding onto into around below above itself.
Click to expand...
Pardon?

So do believe in QM gravitons, or Relativity's bent space, model of gravity??
Click to expand...
Pardon?
 
brantc said:
Wow, you sure have a narrow humanistic view of the universe.
Click to expand...

You're getting that from my expectation that someone would interpret a picture to support a non-mainstream phyiscal theory?

Any of those things could be proven wrong(or right) at anytime.
Click to expand...

But not by that picture.

The Big Bangers think the earth is at a special location in the universe. Except for the ones that think space is expanding onto into around below above itself.
Click to expand...

I disagree, of course. RC already responded, and I can't improve on that response.

So do believe in QM gravitons, or Relativity's bent space, model of gravity??
Click to expand...

<shrug>That's actually a fairly deep philosophical question. To put it as succinctly as possible, I believe that the standard models of QM, relativity and gravity provide predictions that match extremely well with experimental evidence. I don't know if there is some underlying reality that would explain why the universe acts in the manner that it does, so I don't know that I believe that Relativity (for instance) represents some ultimate description of the nature of the universe or is just a handy mathematical approximation.
But if it's just a handy approximation, then it's a very good approximation.

On the specific issue of gravitons, I haven't dug into it enough to have a strong feeling about them.
 
Reality Check said:
Totally wrong.
  • The Big Bang theory includes the premise that the Earth is not at a special location in the universe. This is the cosmological principle.
  • No "Big Banger" thinks that space is expanding into anything "around below above itself".
    The universe is not expanding into anything. By definition the universe is everything.
Click to expand...


LOL You can define the universe anyway you want but does that reflect reality?
So if everything is expanding where does the extra space come from?
And is the universe growing (more matter or more space) which would mean it is growing into something where there is not universe.....

Since there is no center(or we are not at the center) what was the big bang?

Dont answer that. I dont want to get off track.:)
 
brantc said:
LOL You can define the universe anyway you want but does that reflect reality?
So if everything is expanding where does the extra space come from?
Click to expand...
If everything is growing older, where does the extra time come from?

And is the universe growing (more matter or more space) which would mean it is growing into something where there is not universe.....
Click to expand...
No it wouldn't. It's not growing in to anything in any meaningful sense of the word.

Since there is no center(or we are not at the center) what was the big bang?
Click to expand...
Where is the centre of the surface of a balloon?
 
Tubbythin said:
If everything is growing older, where does the extra time come from?
Click to expand...
So your saying space(time) is infinite and matter is expanding(growing older) into it??

No it wouldn't. It's not growing in to anything in any meaningful sense of the word.

Where is the centre of the surface of a balloon?
Click to expand...

"in any meaningful sense of the word." Thats code for "it doesnt match with reality".

A sphere, a sphere, a balloon is a sphere. The surface stretches as well as moves from the center of the sphere.

So the big bang is a shock wave and we live on the shock front??

That still implies there was a center at some point in time.

As far as I can tell the only physical analogy that works is a flat, static universe.
 
brantc said:
A sphere, a sphere, a balloon is a sphere. The surface stretches as well as moves from the center of the sphere.

A sphere, a sphere, a balloon is a sphere. The surface stretches as well as moves from the center of the sphere.

So the big bang is a shock wave and we live on the shock front??

That still implies there was a center at some point in time.

As far as I can tell the only physical analogy that works is a flat, static universe.
Click to expand...
It is not emphasized enough in descriptions of the balloon model that there is only the surface of the balloon and nothing else.
  • The balloon does not include any points outside of the surface.
  • The balloon does not include any points inside the surface.
  • It especially does not include the center point.
The best way to look at it is to visualize that you were an inhabitant of the balloon surface and only that surface existed. The mathematical term for the balloon is a 2-sphere.

And yes - the balloon surface does stretch and points on it move away from the center.

The big bang is a 4-D (space-time) "shock wave" and we live on the shock front.

This still means that mathematically there is no center of the shock wave at any point in time, except possibly at t=0 if you assume that the volume of the universe is zero and ignore the singularity that this produces.

A flat, static universe is not a physical analogy. It is a model of the universe that is not supported by observation.
 
brantc said:
So your saying space(time) is infinite and matter is expanding(growing older) into it??
Click to expand...
No. You wanted to know where the extra space came from. I'm not sure that's a meaningful question any more than "the Universe is growing older, where did the extra time come from?"

"in any meaningful sense of the word." Thats code for "it doesnt match with reality".
Click to expand...
Its absolutely nothing of the sort. It's roughly code for: "you're intuition is failing you". I don't mean this as an insult. Intuition is what you believe to be common sense based on your every day experiences. But since your everyday experiences don't deal with expanding spacetime, its unsurprising that your intuition fails you. Mine fails me regularly when I read about quantum mechanics.

A sphere, a sphere, a balloon is a sphere. The surface stretches as well as moves from the center of the sphere.
Click to expand...
Yes, but I asked where the centre of the surface was.

So the big bang is a shock wave and we live on the shock front??
Click to expand...
No.

That still implies there was a center at some point in time.
Click to expand...
Ok, with an inflated baloon mark on a set of co-ordinates like longitude and latitude. Now, let the baloon deflate. What are the co-ordinates of the centre?

As far as I can tell the only physical analogy that works is a flat, static universe.
Click to expand...
How is that an analogy? And how on Earth does it work? How does it not collapse on itself? And how does it not violate at least one of the first or second laws of thermodynamics.
 
brantc said:
So your saying space(time) is infinite and matter is expanding(growing older) into it??



"in any meaningful sense of the word." Thats code for "it doesnt match with reality".

A sphere, a sphere, a balloon is a sphere. The surface stretches as well as moves from the center of the sphere.

So the big bang is a shock wave and we live on the shock front??

That still implies there was a center at some point in time.

As far as I can tell the only physical analogy that works is a flat, static universe.
Click to expand...

Wrong,wrong,wrong.Think of the universe as the three dimensional surface of a four dimensional sphere.The centre of the balloon has no part in the analogy.You have missed the point by several country miles. Time and space were created in the big bang.The centre of the big bang is everywhere in the universe.Not that I expect you to understand this,but I thought I'd give it a go.
 
Tubbythin said:
No. You wanted to know where the extra space came from. I'm not sure that's a meaningful question any more than "the Universe is growing older, where did the extra time come from?"
Click to expand...

Time does not exist. If there were no processes(life, universe, chemical reations etc.) you would not have to measure time.

Its absolutely nothing of the sort. It's roughly code for: "you're intuition is failing you". I don't mean this as an insult. Intuition is what you believe to be common sense based on your every day experiences. But since your everyday experiences don't deal with expanding spacetime, its unsurprising that your intuition fails you. Mine fails me regularly when I read about quantum mechanics.
How can you say that when all we know about the universe is from our place on Earth? I've read so many different explanations about the universe and expanding spacetime.. Time doesn't expand. Space doesn't "curve".

Yes, but I asked where the centre of the surface was.


Ok, with an inflated baloon mark on a set of co-ordinates like longitude and latitude. Now, let the baloon deflate. What are the co-ordinates of the centre?
Click to expand...

The surface doesn't have a center. But a sphere does.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Reality Check said:
A flat, static universe is not a physical analogy. It is a model of the universe that is not supported by observation.
Click to expand...


Is The Universe Static Or Expanding?

Barry Setterfield, 4th August 2002.
http://ldolphin.org/staticu.html

<snip>
The Quantized Redshift
From 1975 onward, after a long, careful series of measurements on binary galaxies and galaxies in the Coma cluster, Tifft published several papers indicating that redshift differences between galaxies were not smooth but went in jumps, or were quantised [Tifft, 1977, p.31]. The Coma cluster exhibited this effect in such a way that bands of redshift ran through the whole cluster. Some little time later, Tifft was on sabbatical leave in Italy and lectured on the puzzling quantization effects he had been observing. At one of these lectures he was presented with a list of accurate redshifts using radio measurements of hydrogen with the comment "I am sure you will not find periodicity in here." In this case, the word "periodicity" is referring to the quantisation effect. Astronomer Halton Arp reports on the outcome of Tifft's analysis of this data set by stating: "Not only did the quantization appear in this independent set of very accurate double galaxy measurements, but it was the most clear cut, obviously significant demonstration of the effect yet seen. ...The results were later reconfirmed by optical measures in the Southern Hemisphere..." [Arp, 1987, p. 112].
<snip>
They noted that the motion of the Solar System through space imparted a genuine Doppler shift of its own to all measurements of redshift. When this Solar System Doppler component was subtracted from the survey results, redshift quantization appeared globally across the whole sky [Tifft & Cocke, 1984, p.492]. Despite the size of the data set that the Fisher-Tully catalogue provided, the 'noisy data' argument continued as the official reason for rejection of the results. However, in 1985, there was an unexpected and independent confirmation of the quantization effects. Sulentic and Arp used radio-telescopes to accurately measure the redshifts of over 260 galaxies from more than 80 different groups for an entirely different purpose. As they did their analysis, the same quantizations that Tifft and Cocke had discovered surprisingly appeared in their data, and the measurement error was only 1/9th of the size of the quantization [Arp & Sulentic, 1985, p. 88; also Arp, 1987, pp.108, 110, 112-113, 119].

<snip>
Attempting To Settle The Issue
These developments were disturbing to astronomers and cosmologists alike. In the early 1990's two astronomers in Scotland decided to prove Tifft wrong once and for all. Bruce Guthrie and William Napier from the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh used the most accurate hydrogen line redshift data. By the end of 1991 they had studied 106 spiral galaxies and detected a quantization of about 37.5 km/s, very close to Tifft's quantum multiple of 36.2 km/s [Schewe & Stein, 1992a, No.61]. By November 1992, a further 89 spiral galaxies had been examined in which a quantization of 37.2 km/s emerged [Schewe & Stein, 1992b, No. 104]. In 1995 they submitted a paper to Astronomy and Astrophysics with the results from a further 97 spiral galaxies showing a 37.5 km/s quantization. Because the prevailing wisdom said the quantization only appeared because of small number statistics, the referees asked them to repeat their analysis with another set of galaxies. This Guthrie and Napier did with an additional set of 117 other galaxies. The same 37.5 km/s quantization was plainly in evidence in this 1996 data set, and the referees accepted the paper [Matthews, 1996, p.759; Corliss, 1996, No. 105, Arp, 1998, p.199-200]. A Fourier analysis of all 399 data points showed a huge spike at 37.5 km/s with a significance of one in a million. The measurement error was about 1/10th the size of the quantization. One comment on the redshift quantization plot stated: "One can see at a glance how accurately the troughs and peaks of redshift march metronomically outward from 0 to over 2000 km/s." [Arp, 1998, p.199]. Despite this observational evidence, cosmologists like James Peebles of Princeton are reluctant to accept it. He stated: "I'm not being dogmatic and saying it cannot happen, but if it does, it's a real shocker." [Corliss, op. cit; Arp, 1998, p.200].

But now were are getting off topic.
 
Last edited:
brantc said:
Is The Universe Static Or Expanding?

Barry Setterfield, 4th August 2002.
http://ldolphin.org/staticu.html

<snip>
The Quantized Redshift

<snip>
Click to expand...
The answer is expanding bacause
  1. we observe it expanding (Hubble) and
  2. the evidence that it was once in a hot dense state (CMB).
Dancing David has already cited the current papers that reveal that quantized redshift was probably a consequence of the low sample numbers available at the time (prior to 2002 which oddly enough is the date of that web page!).
 
brantc said:
Time does not exist.
Click to expand...
In what sense does time not exist? How can you say x happened before y or after z without time?

If there were no processes(life, universe, chemical reations etc.) you would not have to measure time.
Click to expand...
Well obviously, if there were no universe there'd be no me to measure time.

How can you say that when all we know about the universe is from our place on Earth?
Click to expand...
Why shouldn't I say that?

I've read so many different explanations about the universe and expanding spacetime.. Time doesn't expand. Space doesn't "curve".
Click to expand...
Just so we're clear, are you saying GR is flat out wrong?

The surface doesn't have a center.
Click to expand...
Correct.

But a sphere does.
Click to expand...
That's nice. But we're not talking about a sphere.
 
Wolverine said:
:eek:

You do realize that Barry Setterfield and Lambert Dolphin are creationists?
Click to expand...

Does that make their data invalid?? Do you expect them to pull a Climategate with their data??

Funny as it sounds I dont believe in creation or evolution.

I believe that we were genetically engineered and then placed on this planet.

Thats just as good....
 
brantc said:
Does that make their data invalid?? Do you expect them to pull a Climategate with their data??.
Click to expand...
Firstly there is no data. There are some equations and citations of outdated invalid papers.

But it means that if their "data" is valid then the Earth is only ~6000 years old. That is what they are saying their "data" shows.

You citing them suggests that you are willing to believe this despite the overwhelming evidence that this is wrong. However I do not thnk that you do believe them and so you citing their "evdence" that the Earth is only ~6000 years old was a mistake.

However if I am wrong .... :D

I assume that you can detect the obvious errors in the web page?
Start with "In order to save the existing paradigm, it is then concluded that the expansion does not occur within the galaxies themselves, but rather is external to them." which is an outright lie.
 
Last edited:
brantc said:
Does that make their data invalid?? Do you expect them to pull a Climategate with their data??

Funny as it sounds I dont believe in creation or evolution.

I believe that we were genetically engineered and then placed on this planet.

Thats just as good....
Click to expand...

So did you cite their data?

Hmmm, Setterfield is wrong in most things....

You don't even read what you cite
http://ldolphin.org/staticu.html

What data does setterfield use Hmmmmmmmmm?

:dl:
 
Last edited:
Reality Check said:
brantc said:
Does that make their data invalid?? Do you expect them to pull a Climategate with their data??
Click to expand...
Firstly there is no data. There are some equations and citations of outdated invalid papers.

But it means that if their "data" is valid then the Earth is only ~6000 years old. That is what they are saying their "data" shows.
Click to expand...


Exactly.

brantc, their arguments are specifically designed to promote a young Earth (and universe). It's an exercise in Biblical literalism, religious apologetics -- nothing whatsoever to do with science. That you're unable to identify it as such is rather unfortunate.
 
Wolverine said:
Exactly.

brantc, their arguments are specifically designed to promote a young Earth (and universe). It's an exercise in Biblical literalism, religious apologetics -- nothing whatsoever to do with science. That you're unable to identify it as such is rather unfortunate.
Click to expand...
Thanks Wolverine: I knew that I had seen some critism of Barry Setterfield's claims somewhere but had forgotten that it was on W.T. Bridgman's excellent web site: Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy.

An interesting insight into why brantc may be citing creationists - he may have picked it up from an electric universe site because Setterfield is mixing in that science woo into his claims
August 11, 2009, "Critique of Some New Setterfield Material" by G.P. Jellison Discussion of more recent updates on Setterfield's site, including some of Setterfield's adoption of aspects of the Electric Universe claims.
Click to expand...
 
Setterfield

Reality Check said:
Thanks Wolverine: I knew that I had seen some critism of Barry Setterfield's claims somewhere but had forgotten that it was on W.T. Bridgman's excellent web site: Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy.
Click to expand...
You will also find Setterfield's dubious claims criticized here: The Decay of c-decay from the Talk.Origins Archive. I dealt with Setterfield quite a bit many years ago. His claims are based on his inability to distinguish between real trends in the universe and artifacts in his adopted data set. Curious, isn't it, how the Wack-a-doos of the world seem to make that mistake a lot.
 
Sloan Great Wall.
The Sloan Great Wall is a giant wall of galaxies (a galactic filament), and as of 2010, is the largest known structure in the Universe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Great_Wall

"The "Sloan Great Wall" of galaxies, as detected by the Sloan Digital Survey, has earned the distinction of being the largest observed structure in the Universe. It is 1.36 billion light years long and 80% longer than the Great Wall discovered by Geller and Huchra. It runs roughly from the head of Hydra to the feet of Virgo. It would have taken at least 250 billion years to form."
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblo...fact-or-fiction-many-experts-say-fiction.html


The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time
Here is the data on CDK. The universe is slowing down....
http://www.setterfield.org/report/report.html#3i

And then from Blaze labs.....

"The official CODATA value for G in 1986 was given as G= (6,67259±0.00085)x10-11 m3Kg-1s-2 and was based on the Luther and Towler determination in 1982. However, the value of G has been recently called into question by new measurements from respected research teams in Germany, New Zealand, and Russia in order to try to settle this issue. The new values using the best laboratory equipment to-date disagreed wildly to the point that many are doubting about the constancy of this parameter and some are even postulating entirely new forces to explain these gravitational anomalies."
http://www.blazelabs.com/f-u-massvariation.asp

The Alternative Cosmology Group.
http://www.cosmology.info/
 
"Describe the universe"?

The universe "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space, listen..."
 
brantc said:
Sloan Great Wall.
The Sloan Great Wall is a giant wall of galaxies (a galactic filament), and as of 2010, is the largest known structure in the Universe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Great_Wall
Click to expand...
The only part of this post that addresses the OP.

And then you spoil the good science by going into scientific woo from a creationist and a crankish (if that is a word) web site.

Thanks for linking yet again to the creationist, Barry Setterfield, who thinks that a list of the historical mesaurements of c means that c has changed in historical times. Exposing his ignorance is a good idea.

... Unless you are now a young Earth creationist :D since his evidence has convinced you so much that you are citing him as a credible source of science?
Reality Check said:
But it means that if their "data" is valid then the Earth is only ~6000 years old. That is what they are saying their "data" shows.

You citing them suggests that you are willing to believe this despite the overwhelming evidence that this is wrong. However I do not thnk that you do believe them and so you citing their "evdence" that the Earth is only ~6000 years old was a mistake.

However if I am wrong .... :D

I assume that you can detect the obvious errors in the web page?
Start with "In order to save the existing paradigm, it is then concluded that the expansion does not occur within the galaxies themselves, but rather is external to them." which is an outright lie.
Click to expand...

brantc said:
And then from Blaze labs.....

"The official CODATA value for G in 1986 was given as G= (6,67259±0.00085)x10-11 m3Kg-1s-2 and was based on the Luther and Towler determination in 1982. However, the value of G has been recently called into question by new measurements from respected research teams in Germany, New Zealand, and Russia in order to try to settle this issue. The new values using the best laboratory equipment to-date disagreed wildly to the point that many are doubting about the constancy of this parameter and some are even postulating entirely new forces to explain these gravitational anomalies."
http://www.blazelabs.com/f-u-massvariation.asp
Click to expand...
Almost back to some science - G is one of the less precisely measured fundemental constants because it has to be measured indirectly.

But this is the web page of what looks like an engineer ("Engineer Xavier Borg") in a probably personal site. There is some standard enginering stuff but then there is the "zero point energy systems" stuff you see from crackpots.
P.S. Barry Setterfield states that G is a "truly fixed" constant. So I guess that you think that Barry Setterfield is truly wrong.

A nitpick:
"The official CODATA value for G in 1986 was given as G= (6,67259±0.00085)x10-11 m3Kg-1s-2" is 20 years old!
The value in 2006 is 6.674 28(67) x 10^-11 m^3 kg^-1 s^-2.

Do you really want to derail this thread into discussions of evey crank theory about the universe on the internet?
Or do you want to seriously discuss actual cosmology?
 
Last edited:
brantc said:
Sloan Great Wall.
The Sloan Great Wall is a giant wall of galaxies (a galactic filament), and as of 2010, is the largest known structure in the Universe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Great_Wall

"The "Sloan Great Wall" of galaxies, as detected by the Sloan Digital Survey, has earned the distinction of being the largest observed structure in the Universe. It is 1.36 billion light years long and 80% longer than the Great Wall discovered by Geller and Huchra. It runs roughly from the head of Hydra to the feet of Virgo. It would have taken at least 250 billion years to form."
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblo...fact-or-fiction-many-experts-say-fiction.html
Click to expand...
Yeah, that does not prove the redshift issue at all, is shows lack of homogeneity in distribution.

And the evidence it would have taken 250 billion years to form is?

You mean that they don't have a reason this is a problem, they just engage is hand waving?

So the dsitribution of matter as evidenced by the CMB is meaningless to them?
"based on their speed of movement", oh they mean if the matter were all equally distributed in the early universe, there was no inflation and then the current observed motion was the onlt factor?

Do you read your sources Brantc?
The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time
Here is the data on CDK. The universe is slowing down....
http://www.setterfield.org/report/report.html#3i
Click to expand...
And the sources, unmentioned by Setterfield are some from the 1700s, what?
And then from Blaze labs.....

"The official CODATA value for G in 1986 was given as G= (6,67259±0.00085)x10-11 m3Kg-1s-2 and was based on the Luther and Towler determination in 1982. However, the value of G has been recently called into question by new measurements from respected research teams in Germany, New Zealand, and Russia in order to try to settle this issue. The new values using the best laboratory equipment to-date disagreed wildly to the point that many are doubting about the constancy of this parameter and some are even postulating entirely new forces to explain these gravitational anomalies."
http://www.blazelabs.com/f-u-massvariation.asp
Click to expand...
In my theory of absolute velocity of matter, I will show that the variation within all these experimental results, not only IS NOT due to experimental error, but that the measure of the variation itself is of paramount importance to our understanding of physical laws, and indeed of the whole universe.
Click to expand...

Except that they don't do they?

Where do they show that mass is inconstant?

Dinosaurs would be crushed by their own weight under our present gravitational force

....

Kalasasaya Temple at Tiahuanaco - Its size and weight clearly indicate that gravitational forces were much lower during its time. The vertical coloums are 12 foot long.
Human beings could handle heavier and bigger building blocks with no problem
Click to expand...
That does it i call Wacky Bannana on this one!

The Alternative Cosmology Group.
http://www.cosmology.info/
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Quantized or Periodic Redshifts

Are cosmological redshifts periodic or quantized? Let us start with this.

No periodicities in 2dF Redshift Survey data
Hawkins, Maddox & Merrifield
Monthly Notice of the Royal Astronomical Society 336(1): L13-L16, October 2002
Abstract: We have used the publicly available data from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey and the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey to test the hypothesis that there is a periodicity in the redshift distribution of quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) found projected close to foreground galaxies. These data provide by far the largest and most homogeneous sample for such a study, yielding 1647 QSO-galaxy pairs. There is no evidence for a periodicity at the predicted frequency in log(1+z), or at any other frequency.

This conclusion, that the largest dataset then available did not show any periodicity, drew the following response from supporters of periodicity claims.

The detection of periodicity in QSO data sets
W.M. Napier & G. Burbidge
Monthly Notice of the Royal Astronomical Society 342(2): 601-604, June 2003
Abstract: The issue of periodicity in quasi-stellar object (QSO) data sets is re-examined in the light of the failure to detect a periodicity in the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey, and of a recent claim that edge effects might have generated a spurious periodicity of 0.089 in log10(1+z) in earlier data sets. A new methodology is described by which the contribution of edge effects may be assessed. It is shown that they have not in fact induced a spurious periodicity in the earlier data sets. Several possible factors are discussed which may tend to mask the periodicity in the 2dF Survey. Thus the earlier evidence for the periodicity in QSO redshifts is unaffected, although new constraints on astrophysical models may be imposed. The following study came partly in response to the above argument from Napier & Burbidge. Critical Examinations of QSO Redshift Periodicities and Associations with Galaxies in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Su Min Tang & Shuang Nan Zhang The Astrophysical Journal 633(1): 41-51, November 2005 Abstract: We have used the publicly available data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and 2dF QSO redshift survey to test the hypothesis that QSOs are ejected from active galaxies with periodic noncosmological redshifts. For two different intrinsic redshift models, namely the Karlsson log(1+z) model and Bell's decreasing intrinsic redshift (DIR) model, we do two tests. First, using different criteria, we generate four sets of QSO-galaxy pairs and find there is no evidence for a periodicity at the predicted frequency in log(1+z), or at any other frequency. We then check the relationship between high-redshift QSOs and nearby active galaxies, and we find that the distribution of projected distance between high-redshift QSOs and nearby active galaxies and the distribution of redshifts of those active galaxies are consistent with a distribution of simulated random pairs, completely different from Bell's previous conclusion. We also analyze the periodicity in redshifts of QSOs, and no periodicity is found in high-completeness samples, contrary to the DIR model. These results support the hypothesis that QSOs are not ejected from active galaxies. Meanwhile, the following paper, which came out before Tang & Zhang, shows selection effects in the data are responsible for the periodicity claims investigated therein. Selection Effects in the Redshift Distribution of Gamma-Ray Bursts and Associated Quasi-stellar Objects and Active Galaxies D. Basu The Astrophysical Journal Letters 618(2): L71-L74, January 2005 Abstract: Redshift distributions of extragalactic objects have been suggested to exhibit periodicities. But based on which periodicities are claimed, peaks and troughs have been shown to be artifacts of observational and analytical selection effects. The long debate over the matter has so far been concerned mostly with quasi-stellar objects (QSOs). However, the claim for periodicities has now been extended to gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), another species of extragalactic objects with high redshifts. The redshift distribution of the 33 objects (23 GRBs and associated nine QSOs and one active galaxy) for which a periodicity is claimed (Burbidge), with one new GRB redshift added and one too many QSO redshift eliminated, is compared with distributions of three selection effect parameters. It is shown that the peaks and troughs in the redshift distribution of the 33 objects have appeared as a result of observational and analytical selection effects. This leads to the conclusion that there is no periodicity in the distribution. Meanwhile, 2007 sees the 5th data release from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog. IV. Fifth Data Release Donald P. Schneider, et al. Astronomical Journal 134:102-117, July 2007 See figure 3 (page 110 of the published paper) which shows the redshift distribution (ranging in redshift from 0.08 to 5.41) of the 77,429 cataloged quasars in the SDSS 5th data release. There is no periodicity evident in this distribution. There are two depressions in the redshift distribution identified as known data processing artifacts by the authors, but interpreted as indications of periodicity by fans of the alternative. The SDSS data release is followed by another paper from Tang & Zhang arguing against non-cosmological redshifts for quasars. Evidence against non-cosmological redshifts of QSOs in SDSS data Su Min Tang & Shuang Nan Zhang; Invited review to appear as a chapter in "Redshifts of Quasi Stellar Objects", ed. D. Basu 16 July 2008, last revised 18 July 2008 Abstract: In the unusual intrinsic QSO redshift models, QSOs are ejected by active galaxies with periodic non-cosmological redshifts, thus QSOs are generally associated with active galaxies, and certain structures will be revealed in the QSO redshift distribution. As the largest homogeneous sample of QSOs and galaxies, SDSS data provide the best opportunity to examine this issue. We review the debates on this issue, focused on those based on SDSS and 2dF data, and conclude that there is no strong connection between foreground active galaxies and high-redshift QSOs. The existence of two dips in the SDSS QSO redshift distribution at z=2.7 and 3.5 has recently re-ignited those controversial debates on the origin of QSO redshift. It also turned out that both dips are totally caused by selection effects and after selection effects have been corrected, the two dips disappear and no structure in the redshift distribution of SDSS DR5 sample. These results support that the redshifts of QSOs are cosmological. Note that even in the 5th SDSS data release paper shown above, it had already been determined that the gaps were an artifact, but that did not stop fans of periodicity from using them to advance their claims. Meanwhile, the next two papers outline the difficulty posed by selection effects and artifacts in large datasets. This is an important point to make. Large data sets are commonly beset by selection effects which create artifacts of distribution in the dataset. Unknown selection effect simulates redshift periodicity in quasar number counts from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (pre-print URL) J.G. Hartnett Astrophysics and Space Science 324(1): 13-16, November 2009 Abstract: Discrete Fourier analysis on the quasar number count, as a function of redshift, z, calculated from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR6 release appears to indicate that quasars have preferred periodic redshifts with redshift intervals of 0.258, 0.312, 0.44, 0.63, and 1.1. However the same periods are found in the mean of the zConf parameter used to flag the reliability of the spectroscopic measurements. It follows that these redshift periods must result from some selection effect, as yet undetermined. It does not signal any intrinsic (quantized) redshifts in the quasars in Sloan survey data. However this result does not rule out the possibility as found in earlier studies of other data. Selection effects in the SDSS quasar sample: the filter gap footprint M.B. Bell & S.P. Comeau Astrophysics and Space Science 326(1): 11-17, March 2010 Abstract: In the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasars are targeted using colors and anything that can cause the identifying characteristics of the colors to disappear can create problems in the source selection process. Quasar spectra contain strong emission lines that can seriously affect the colors in photometric systems in which the transmission characteristics vary abruptly and significantly with redshift. When a strong line crosses a gap between two filter passbands the color effects induced by the line change abruptly, and there is also a dimming in apparent brightness compared to those redshifts where the strong line is inside a filter passband where the transmission is high. The strong emission lines in quasars, combined with the varying detectability introduced by the transmission pattern of the five filters, will result in a filter-gap footprint being imprinted on the N(z) distribution, with more quasars being missed when a strong line falls in a filter gap. It is shown here that a periodicity of Δz~0.6 is imprinted on the redshift-number distribution by this selection effect. Because this effect cannot be rigorously corrected for, astronomers need to be aware of it in any investigation that uses the SDSS N(z) distribution. Its presence also means that the SDSS quasar data cannot be used either to confirm or to rule out the Δz~0.6 redshift period reported previously in other, unrelated quasar data. The SDSS 7th data release came out last month. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog. V. Seventh Data Release Donald P. Schneider, et al. The Astronomical Journal 139(6): 2360-2373, June 2010 See page 17 of the preprint and see figure 7 on page 30 of the preprint. When corrected for zConf & filter selection effects the redshift distribution of 105,783 quasars is smooth and shows no periodicity. At best, the claims of periodicity in quasar redshift distributions is highly controversial, and in my opinion the evidence against periodicity significantly outweighs the evidence in favor of periodicity. I think the fans of periodicity are too eager to support their claims, so they are easily fooled by selection effects that would be realized by a more scientifically neutral (i.e., less biased)attitude. Here I want to introduce the readers to a little known paper, not cited in any of these studies, but which in my view is critical and should have a wider recognition. As far as I know, the paper exists only as a preprint; if published, it probably appeared in an obscure Chinese journal. Evidence consistent with the cosmological interpretation of quasar redshifts Yi-Ping Qin, et al., April 2000 Abstract: n this letter, the old issue of whether redshifts of quasars are of cosmological origin is investigated. We make a plot of absorption redshifts versus emission redshifts for quasars with large amounts of data. Our study shows that, almost all absorption redshifts are smaller than the corresponding emission redshifts. The relation between the absorption and emission redshifts predicted by current cosmological models is well obeyed. The result confirms that redshifts of quasars are indeed distance indicators. It might be the most obvious evidence found so far to be consistent with the cosmological interpretation of quasar redshifts. This paper does not directly address periodicity, per se, but presents a study of quasar redshifts I have not seen in any other source. The authors plot 1,306 absorption redshifts from 400 quasars. In the cosmological interpretation the absorbing sources lie primarily between the observer and the quasar, which is solely responsible for the emission lines. Hence, the emission line redshift is the redshift of the quasar, while the absorption redshifts belong to sources primarily between the emission source and the observer. So we expect that most of the absorption redshifts should be lower than the emission redshift, for any give object. I say "most" because one would expect some absorption from material inside the quasar, which could show a slightly larger redshift than the emission source. Figure 1 of this paper (the only figure) is the plot of emission redshift versus absorption redshift for their 400 quasars. The plot is striking. As the authors point out in the text, out of 1306 absorption redshifts, 86 (6.6%) are larger than the emission redshift. But the plot shows that in all cases where the absorption redshift is larger than the emission redshift, it is only barely so. The absorption redshifts barely step over the line where emission redshift = absorption redshift. A statistical analysis in the text shows that, on average, the difference absorption redshift - emission redshift is 0.0137 and the ratio (absorption redshift - emission redshift) / emission redshift is 0.0061. The emission redshifts range from about 0.1 to 4.7 (picked off the plot, the range is not listed in the text). This result is the most convincing demonstration I have seen that quasar redshifts are not intrinsic, but rather cosmological, as expected. How else does one explain the strong systematic relationship between absorption & emission redshifts, just as standard cosmology implies? Now, consider the affect of either periodic (or quantized) redshifts, on cosmology. Do they necessarily invalidate the fundamental idea of big bang cosmology, namely the basic expanding universe concept? Obviously, the answer is no, they do not. For one thing, it is easy enough to see that the idea of a redshift-distance relationship is certainly independent from the quantized or periodic nature of redshifts. And for another thing, the author of the concept of quantized redshifts (William Tifft, from Steward Observatory, University of Arizona), did not think so. In fact, he attributed the effect to a quantization of time (Tifft, 1996). And also consider the effect of the true nature of quasars on cosmology. Suppose we simply granted that it was true, quasars are ejected by galaxies. Does that invalidate the fundamental idea of an expanding universe. Again, the answer is no. The fundamental idea of an expanding universe is based on the redshift-distance relationship for galaxies, first reported by Edwin Hubble in 1929 (Hubble, 1929a, Hubble, 1929b), and subsequently strongly confirmed by observation, comparing redshifts to multiple independent relative & absolute distance measures (e.g., Sandage, 1972a, Sandage 1972b and the remaining 8 papers in the 10-paper series; Hodge, 1981; Freedman, et al., 1994 and the remaining 29 papers in the 30-paper Hubble Space Telescope Key Project series of papers). So, in summary ....
  1. Observational evidence disfavors the controversial idea that redshifts are either periodic or quantized.
  2. Even if galaxy or quasar redshifts are periodic or quantized, big bang cosmology remains intact.
  3. Even if quasars are local & ejected from nearby galaxies, big bang cosmology remains intact.
Appendix: A Few Websites of interest. The 2dF Redshift Survey The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Hubble Space Telescope Key Project
 
brantc said:
Does that make their data invalid?? Do you expect them to pull a Climategate with their data??

Funny as it sounds I dont believe in creation or evolution.

I believe that we were genetically engineered and then placed on this planet.

Thats just as good....
Click to expand...

 
Reality Check said:
Thanks Wolverine: I knew that I had seen some critism of Barry Setterfield's claims somewhere but had forgotten that it was on W.T. Bridgman's excellent web site: Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy.

An interesting insight into why brantc may be citing creationists - he may have picked it up from an electric universe site because Setterfield is mixing in that science woo into his claims
Click to expand...


So how does a belief in god fit into this. Does that mean every scientist that believes in god is a bad scientist.

Or is it only the ones that believe in the correct version of god can do good science, that the universe is 13 billions years old and not 6000.

Either one to me is a belief in a belief in god. And there are alot of mainstream scientists that believe in god.
 
Tim Thompson said:
Are cosmological redshifts periodic or quantized? Let us start with this.

No periodicities in 2dF Redshift Survey data
Hawkins, Maddox & Merrifield
Monthly Notice of the Royal Astronomical Society 336(1): L13-L16, October 2002
Abstract: We have used the publicly available data from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey and the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey to test the hypothesis that there is a periodicity in the redshift distribution of quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) found projected close to foreground galaxies. These data provide by far the largest and most homogeneous sample for such a study, yielding 1647 QSO-galaxy pairs. There is no evidence for a periodicity at the predicted frequency in log(1+z), or at any other frequency.

This conclusion, that the largest dataset then available did not show any periodicity, drew the following response from supporters of periodicity claims.

The detection of periodicity in QSO data sets
W.M. Napier & G. Burbidge
Monthly Notice of the Royal Astronomical Society 342(2): 601-604, June 2003
Abstract: The issue of periodicity in quasi-stellar object (QSO) data sets is re-examined in the light of the failure to detect a periodicity in the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey, and of a recent claim that edge effects might have generated a spurious periodicity of 0.089 in log10(1+z) in earlier data sets. A new methodology is described by which the contribution of edge effects may be assessed. It is shown that they have not in fact induced a spurious periodicity in the earlier data sets. Several possible factors are discussed which may tend to mask the periodicity in the 2dF Survey. Thus the earlier evidence for the periodicity in QSO redshifts is unaffected, although new constraints on astrophysical models may be imposed. The following study came partly in response to the above argument from Napier & Burbidge. <snip> So, in summary ....
  1. Observational evidence disfavors the controversial idea that redshifts are either periodic or quantized.
  2. Even if galaxy or quasar redshifts are periodic or quantized, big bang cosmology remains intact.
  3. Even if quasars are local & ejected from nearby galaxies, big bang cosmology remains intact.
Appendix: A Few Websites of interest. The 2dF Redshift Survey The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Hubble Space Telescope Key Project
Click to expand...
I looked at a bunch of this stuff. Unfortunately the math in statistics is impenetrable for me. So the best I can do is quote mine and discuss whether these operation were performed. I will try to follow the math as best as possible. From a discussion I am having on a list. "There are two causes of redshift: 1) velocity and 2) the age of the object. One cannot simply `data mine' the overall collection of raw redshift values of all the known QSOs and expect to see a quantization in those values. Pairs of QSOs are associated with parent galaxies. Therefore, the redshift of the parent must first be removed from both QSOs in the pair. Then the inherent redshift of the pair can be calculated. "There is a detailed explanation of this calculation, as presented by Arp, in Appendix B of "The Electric Sky." Of course, astronomers eager to disparage Arp's ideas do not perform this operation – they claim there is no association between QSO pairs and parent galaxies. So it is a foregone conclusion that no quantization effect will arise if they do not do the calculation correctly." Arp’s Computation of Inherent QSO Redshifts From Appendix B in the Electric Sky (Revised 12/11/09) Halton Arp has concluded that an object's total redshift value is a combination of its intrinsic redshift factor and its velocity redshift factors. If a quasar's intrinsic redshift value is, say, 0.3, and its total velocity redshift is 0.06, then the total redshift factor that will be measured in light coming from this object is given by (1+0.3)(1+0.06) = 1.378. In other words, for this example, the object's light is redshifted 30% due to its youth and then that light is shifted another 6% due to its velocity. The total is not the sum (36%) but rather 37.8%. The wavelength of any given line in this object’s spectrum will be multiplied by 1.378 as compared to the wavelength of that line when it is measured in the laboratory. The total multiplying factor (1+ zt) is made up of two multiplicative factors. <snip> There are three components of a QSO’s overall redshift value. The calculation necessary to identify each of these is done as follows: Identify a pair of quasars, q1 and q2, one on either side of a parent galaxy, G. The redshift of quasar q1 is due to three causes: 1. The intrinsic redshift of this quasar itself. This is the quantity that we want to determine (this is the value that is quantized). Arp maintains it is a function of the object’s age. 2. The entire family: G, q1, and q2 are moving through space together. This velocity of the entire family defines the “reference frame” of the family. 3. The relative velocity of the quasar, with respect to the parent galaxy, within its reference frame, in the direction of the line of sight. The last two (velocity dependent) components must be removed from the raw measured redshift value for each quasar in order to arrive at the intrinsic value of its redshift." http://members.cox.net/dascott3/AppendixB.pdf
 
Reality Check said:
Do you really want to derail this thread into discussions of evey crank theory about the universe on the internet?
Or do you want to seriously discuss actual cosmology?
Click to expand...


To me a crank theory (since we are name calling) is that the universe came from some small spot, smaller than you can see, expanded faster than the speed of light, and formed the universe.

And not only that they are doing simulations of what it looked like in the Attosecond regime!!!!!:eye-poppi:eye-poppi:eye-poppi

And believing it!!!!
 
brantc said:
I looked at a bunch of this stuff.

Unfortunately the math in statistics is impenetrable for me.

So the best I can do is quote mine and discuss whether these operation were performed. I will try to follow the math as best as possible.

From a discussion I am having on a list.

"There are two causes of redshift: 1) velocity and 2) the age of the object. One cannot simply `data mine' the overall collection of raw redshift values of all the known QSOs and expect to see a quantization in those values.
Click to expand...
Oh, well then it isn't quatization then is it?
Seriously then he has redefined the meaning of the terms.
Pairs of QSOs are associated with parent galaxies. Therefore, the redshift of the parent must first be removed from both QSOs in the pair. Then the inherent redshift of the pair can be calculated.
Click to expand...
And again as always with Arp, there is no actual proof of his idea that QSOs are associated with galactic centers, just cherry picking, rather than seeing what is there.
No proof of pairs, no possible theory to explain it, no coherent theory to explain the intrinsic redshift.
"There is a detailed explanation of this calculation, as presented by Arp, in Appendix B of "The Electric Sky." Of course, astronomers eager to disparage Arp's ideas do not perform this operation – they claim there is no association between QSO pairs and parent galaxies. So it is a foregone conclusion that no quantization effect will arise if they do not do the calculation correctly."
Click to expand...
Well ooops Mr. Arp, that is your problem, you could have proved it, there is a whole catalog of QSOs and galaxies you could look at.

Easy:
-rate/distance of galactic center's (non-Arp) and QSOs
-rate/distance of random spots and QSOs
-rate/distance of Arp galactic centers and QSOs

Find the mean and standard deviation of the first two, then look at the third.

If QSOs are associated with Arp galaxies then the effect would be apparent as all hell.

I wonder why Arp refuse to do that and just cherry picks his alleged data sets?

He is a great man and astronomer but he uses hoodoo statistics.

Arp’s Computation of Inherent QSO Redshifts
From Appendix B in the Electric Sky
(Revised 12/11/09)
Halton Arp has concluded that an object's total redshift value is a combination of its intrinsic redshift factor and its velocity redshift factors. If a quasar's intrinsic redshift value is, say, 0.3, and its total velocity redshift is 0.06, then the total redshift factor that will be measured in light coming from this object is given by (1+0.3)(1+0.06) = 1.378.
In other words, for this example, the object's light is redshifted 30% due to its youth and then that light is shifted another 6% due to its velocity. The total is not the sum (36%) but rather 37.8%. The wavelength of any given line in this object’s spectrum will be multiplied by 1.378 as compared to the wavelength of that line when it is measured in the laboratory. The total
multiplying factor (1+ zt) is made up of two multiplicative factors.

<snip>

There are three components of a QSO’s overall redshift value. The calculation necessary to identify each of these is done as follows:
Identify a pair of quasars, q1 and q2, one on either side of a parent galaxy, G. The redshift of quasar q1 is due to three causes:
1. The intrinsic redshift of this quasar itself. This is the quantity that we want to determine (this is the value that is quantized). Arp maintains it is a function of the object’s age.
2. The entire family: G, q1, and q2 are moving through space together. This velocity of the entire family defines the “reference frame” of the family.
3. The relative velocity of the quasar, with respect to the parent galaxy, within its reference frame, in the direction of the line of sight.
The last two (velocity dependent) components must be removed from the raw measured redshift value for each quasar in order to arrive at the intrinsic value of its redshift."
http://members.cox.net/dascott3/AppendixB.pdf
Click to expand...

Impenetrable statistics, that is Arp's problem, not control groups and no random samples, so no effect, it could all be sample bias, that is the problem with Arp's misuse of statistics.

there is NO evidence of the association of QSOs and galactic centers in pairs or other wise, I can say this with absolute confidence, because ARP could have run sample controls, there is plenty of data to do so, why doesn't he do it, why does he most likely continue with Bayesian statistics when he can use frequency statistics, he could show that there is a true association rather than his cherry picked one.
 
Last edited:
brantc said:
To me a crank theory (since we are name calling) is that the universe came from some small spot, smaller than you can see, expanded faster than the speed of light, and formed the universe.

And not only that they are doing simulations of what it looked like in the Attosecond regime!!!!!:eye-poppi:eye-poppi:eye-poppi

And believing it!!!!
Click to expand...

Well then just throw General Relativity out the window as well, and the Hubble Constant, too bad no alternative theory of red shift is coherent with the evidence.

:rolleyes:
 
brantc said:
So how does a belief in god fit into this. Does that mean every scientist that believes in god is a bad scientist.

Or is it only the ones that believe in the correct version of god can do good science, that the universe is 13 billions years old and not 6000.

Either one to me is a belief in a belief in god. And there are alot of mainstream scientists that believe in god.
Click to expand...
What I posted was (as you quoted):
Reality Check said:
Thanks Wolverine: I knew that I had seen some critism of Barry Setterfield's claims somewhere but had forgotten that it was on W.T. Bridgman's excellent web site: Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy.

An interesting insight into why brantc may be citing creationists - he may have picked it up from an electric universe site because Setterfield is mixing in that science woo into his claims
Click to expand...
You are indulging in a straw man argument. At no point do I mention "a belief in god" or scientists having such a belief.

The blog cited is about dealing with creationism in astronomy. If you read the article about Barry Setterfield's claims then you will see that it is his science that is critiqued and turns out to be quite invalid.

But if you want to make this into the Science is not a religion, but some scientists ARE religous about their science thread then I will address the rest of your post.
  1. Any belief in god (or gods) has no influence at all on whether a scientist is a bad scientist.
  2. Bad science makes a scientist a bad scientist.
    "Bad science" can include a religious belief that causes a scientiist to ignore evidence, e.g. ignoring radiometric dating, tree rings, ice cores, etc. to state that the universe is 6000 years just because some people wrote a book that says so.
  3. The physical evidence is what convinces scientists that the unverse is 13 billions years old and not 6000.
  4. There is no religion that that states that the universe is 13 billion years old. You are free to believe that such a religion exists.
 
brantc said:
To me a crank theory (since we are name calling) is that the universe came from some small spot, smaller than you can see, expanded faster than the speed of light, and formed the universe.

And not only that they are doing simulations of what it looked like in the Attosecond regime!!!!!:eye-poppi:eye-poppi:eye-poppi

And believing it!!!!
Click to expand...
Then you are definitely wrong because you are ignoring the physical evidence for the Big Bang just because of your personal preferences!!!!! :eye-poppi:eye-poppi:eye-poppi

And believing it!!!! :D

But seriously - computer simulations are done all the time. The Attosecond regime can be simulated just as easily as an other regime.

Just to repeat what you are still ignoring:
  • The universe was once smaller, hotter and denser (Hubbble, CMB, Lyman-alpha forest).
  • The universe does "expand faster than the speed of light" and there is no theory that states that it cannot. SR applies to objects in spacetime not spacetime itself.
 
brantc said:
"There is a detailed explanation of this calculation, as presented by Arp, in Appendix B of "The Electric Sky." Of course, astronomers eager to disparage Arp's ideas do not perform this operation – they claim there is no association between QSO pairs and parent galaxies. So it is a foregone conclusion that no quantization effect will arise if they do not do the calculation correctly."...
Click to expand...
I suggest that you read this thread Arp objects, QSOs, Statistics (unfortunately quite long).
The conclusion is that Arp is basically cherry-picking his data and presenting a handful of examples of the kinds of correlation that can be expected between QSOs and foreground galaxies. The word "examples" is carefully picked since Arp does not do any statistics (otherwise he would have a sample).

At the risk of tooting my own horn, I will quote some of the last post in that thread:
Reality Check said:
To more clearly see the problem with Arp's methodology consider the following adaption of it:
Look for images of unusual concentrations of quasars relatively near an arbitary empty point such as the center of the concentration (making sure that there is no galaxy that point).
If there are such images then run Arp's probability calculation. You will get the same magntiude of probability since the calculation does not depend on the nature of the central object.
​
Would Arp then conculde that quasars are emitted from empty space?
Click to expand...
 
http://members.cox.net/dascott3/AppendixB.pdf

Arp’s Computation of Inherent QSO Redshifts
From Appendix B in the Electric Sky

That is not statistics that is one [size-5]Fudge Sunade[/size]

Sorry BrantC , it is not upon any one except for Arp to support his ideas, teh fact exists that Arp himself refuses to do the work that would or would not prove his correlation to be true.

That paper you cites is total twaddle and a mind numbing excuse for not doing real reaserch.

As cited above it would be easy to do especially given the Sloan survey:

Easy:
-rate/distance of galactic center's (non-Arp) and QSOs
-rate/distance of random spots and QSOs
-rate/distance of Arp galactic centers and QSOs

Find the mean and standard deviation of the first two, then look at the third.

If QSOs are associated with Arp galaxies then the effect would be apparent as all hell.

I wonder why Arp refuse to do that and just cherry picks his alleged data sets?

He is a great man and astronomer but he uses hoodoo statistics.

This is even worse than his use of Bayesian and Poisson statitics this is just fudging teh data that eh cherry pickes.
 
Reality Check said:
What I posted was (as you quoted):

You are indulging in a straw man argument. At no point do I mention "a belief in god" or scientists having such a belief.

The blog cited is about dealing with creationism in astronomy. If you read the article about Barry Setterfield's claims then you will see that it is his science that is critiqued and turns out to be quite invalid.

But if you want to make this into the Science is not a religion, but some scientists ARE religous about their science thread then I will address the rest of your post.
  1. Any belief in god (or gods) has no influence at all on whether a scientist is a bad scientist.
  2. Bad science makes a scientist a bad scientist.
    "Bad science" can include a religious belief that causes a scientiist to ignore evidence, e.g. ignoring radiometric dating, tree rings, ice cores, etc. to state that the universe is 6000 years just because some people wrote a book that says so.
  3. The physical evidence is what convinces scientists that the unverse is 13 billions years old and not 6000.
  4. There is no religion that that states that the universe is 13 billion years old. You are free to believe that such a religion exists.
Click to expand...

Yes, but the site you linked to had this to say.

"Researching and refuting creationist claims is a thankless job for scientists. The contributions of those who expose the distortions of “creation scientists” are often buried in obscure Internet sites and discussion groups."

Obviously they have a job to do. They make a distinction between scientists and scientists that believe in God version 1.0.

Its pretty obvious they are on a vendetta.
 
Um, telling the truth that someone is distorting a theory is not a vendetta, now some like Dawkins do take it to an extreme, but that does not make all people who argue against creationism engaged in a vendetta.

ven·det·ta

NOUN:

1. A feud between two families or clans that arises out of a slaying and is perpetuated by retaliatory acts of revenge; a blood feud.
2. A bitter, destructive feud.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom