Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[DeiRenDopa]

Part I, the data

I don't know who, or what, this "mainstream" is, but I personally would like you to do what I suggested in an earlier post ... put said mainstream out of its misery by writing a paper, based on Birkeland's work, that explains the things about coronal loops, solar wind acceleration, etc that you think said who/what finds so mystifying, and put it up on your website.

I already provide a link to Birkeland's whole volume of work on my website. If they won't believe his extensive work with terellas and his presentation, what makes you think one paper from me is going to make any difference?

Well, I must say I wasn't expecting that!

OK, I'll go refresh my memory of what you said about Birkeland and the power of his explanations concerning certain solar system phenomena and how they should be the foundation of a modern theory of cosmology.

When I've done that, I'll come back and ask you to explicitly state just what the Birkeland explanations are and how they can account - quantitatively - for all the relevant, modern, observations of those phenomena mentioned in your posts.

Fair enough?

Part I, the data.

From a post in another thread:
"Alfven and Birkeland could both explain solar wind acceleration and coronal loops and jets. The mainstream still find these things to be a "mystery" [...]"

The rest of the posts are in this thread; in all cases they are extracts, but I give links so any reader can easily check the full context if they wish.

From #315: "Let's start with Birkeland's work. It is "by the book" empirical physics, and it has *significant* predictive value. For instance, Birkeland charged the surface of his sphere as a cathode and in doing so, he "discovered" many things he didn't actually expect to observe, and he wrote about them. He described the jets, the coronal loops, solar wind, aurora around spheres, rings, etc."

From #370: "Birkeland had a "theory" about how aurora worked. He did not just whip up a wee bit of math and claim "I solved the mystery". What he did was "by the book" empirical science. He built real "experiments" with actual "control mechanisms". He also took in-situ measurements from some of the harshest environments on the planet to compare with his lab results. Nothing was left to chance. He changed the parameters of his experiments by reversing the polarity of the sphere, changing the texture of the sphere, playing with magnetic field strengths, etc.

In this way he was able to "explain" not only aurora, but coronal loops, solar jets, solar wind acceleration, planetary rings, and many other things."

From #423: "Birkeland believed that the aurora were caused by electrical current. He worked out some math of course, but he didn't stop there. He built actual *experiments* with real "control mechanisms" and tested his ideas in a lab. During his "experiments" he ended up observing and writing about other phenomenon that were generated during his experiments and were likely to show up in space as a result of his theories. He wrote about and simulated solar wind from the sun. He wrote about and predicted coronal loops. He wrote about and predicted solar jets. He wrote about planetary rings. He realized that all of these things were likely to come into play in the solar system just as they came into play in the lab.

These are actual "predictions" that were 'new' and not simply math formulas related to auroral events. Instead he predicted *new* observations, observations that would take 60 something years to finally demonstrate via satellite."

From #429: "I wasn't until the 70's that the mainstream reluctantly embraced even part of his ideas. At the rate they are going, it could take another 100 years for them to figure out solar wind, something Birkeland simulated and predicted over 100 years ago. They still haven't figured out that coronal loops are electrical discharges and Bruce and Alfven wrote all about it, not just Birkeland."

From #441: "How about his solar wind concepts? You folks can't explain something Birkeland actually simulated in a lab. What's your problem explaining high speed solar wind? Jets? Coronal loops? [...] So I'll have to be dead before you finally accept Birkeland's explanation of say solar wind, or coronal loop discharges, or jets, or anything related to solar physics? No thanks. I already know his ideas work empirically."

From #488: "Why can't you "explain" or "simulate" something Birkeland was able to both explain and simulate over 100 years ago? [...] from my perspective is that you *can't* explain solar wind acceleration and you *refuse* to accept the one "solution" that has actually been physically shown to work empirically, in a lab, with control mechanisms"

From #491: "He not only came up with a way to explain the aurora, but solar activity as well. [...] it's about giving him the credit he was due, and accepting his "explanations" for things the mainstream cannot explain *TO THIS VERY DAY*."

There may be more, but I think I've got the enough to be able to write a succinct, accurate summary; that will Part II.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

To: MM
From: DRD
Re: This thread.

MM,

I have already said, at least twice, that the question posed in the title of this thread was answered, in the negative,

Answered by whom? You? A few "faithful"? Did they empirically "predict" anything useful with inflation or show that it actually exists in nature?

I have tried three different, but somewhat related, approaches to obtain an answer to that question.

It would have been logical for you to attempt to demonstrate your point empirically. You never did that. Going after me isn't going to solve the inflation problem.

[...]

Once things start to repeat, it is usually a sign that it's time to quit ...

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From post #301 in this thread:

MM: "After reading through the plasma cosmology thread today, I'm curious how mainstream Lambda theory would hold up to the same level of scrutiny? What exactly does Lambda-CDM theory "predict" without the use of unfalsifiable and unverifiable entities?

For instance, what empirical evidence supports the idea of inflation? No other known vector or scalar field found in nature will retain near constant density over several exponential increases in volume. The presumed homogeneous layout of matter used to be inflation's primary claim to fame, yet recent observations of "dark flows" would suggest that matter is not homogeneously distributed as "predicted" by inflation. What empirical evidence from controlled experiments demonstrates that inflation even exists in nature?

Dark energy? What is that? How do I get some? What controlled empirical test demonstrates it has any effect on nature?

What about all the so called "properties" of dark matter? How do we verify or falsify these ideas?

In what tangible and demonstrateable way is Lambda-CDM theory any "better" than any other cosmology theory?"

DRD (bold added): "I'd like to see where we're up to, wrt answering the question this thread asks.

First, the question - and thread - appears in the JREF Forum's Science, Mathematics, Medicine, and Technology section, so I guess it's OK to assume "woo" means "woo in the context of "Science, Mathematics, Medicine, and/or Technology". Further, since "Lambda-CDM theory" doesn't have anything to do with Medicine, we can refine the scope. Then, although there are certainly Mathematics and Technology aspects to "Lambda-CDM theory" they are secondary*.

So the question becomes "is "Lambda-CDM theory" scientific woo or not?".

Well, to answer that question, we need to have a common understanding of what "scientific woo" is, don't we?

Of course, we could always ask the site owners or admins or moderators to clarify for us, but ahead of doing that, can we take a stab at working out an answer?

One such answer might be along the lines of "that which is published in relevant peer-reviewed journals and presented at relevant conferences", where "relevant" is understood to mean something like "to do with cosmology".

If so, then "Lambda-CDM theory" is certainly not scientific woo; case closed.

But perhaps a somewhat different definition of 'scientific woo' might be called for, something that deals with what's written in the OP, about 'evidence', 'scrutiny', 'falsification', 'verifiability', and so on?

If so, then "Lambda-CDM theory" is certainly not scientific woo, as was made quite clear in the first page of posts in this thread ... it has been intensely scrutinised, there is tonnes of evidence to support it (and essentially none that doesn't), it is quintessentially falsifiable and verifiable, and so on.

Now I think it's fair to say that MM, the OP, is of the (strong) opinion that "Lambda-CDM theory" is, in fact, woo.

Why?

Clearly not because of reasons of falsifiability, verifiability, evidence, scrutiny etc ... if those were the kinds of reasons, then he'd've provided a link to a paper such as this: Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation (link is to the astro-ph preprint; some formatting is lost):

(Abridged) The WMAP 5-year data strongly limit deviations from the minimal LCDM model. We constrain the physics of inflation via Gaussianity, adiabaticity, the power spectrum shape, gravitational waves, and spatial curvature. We also constrain the properties of dark energy, parity-violation, and neutrinos. We detect no convincing deviations from the minimal model. The parameters of the LCDM model, derived from WMAP combined with the distance measurements from the Type Ia supernovae (SN) and the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO), are: Omega_b=0.0456+-0.0015, Omega_c=0.228+-0.013, Omega_Lambda=0.726+-0.015, H_0=70.5+-1.3 km/s/Mpc, n_s=0.960+-0.013, tau=0.084+-0.016, and sigma_8=0.812+-0.026. With WMAP+BAO+SN, we find the tensor-to-scalar ratio r<0.22 (95% CL), and n_s>1 is disfavored regardless of r. We obtain tight, simultaneous limits on the (constant) equation of state of dark energy and curvature. We provide a set of "WMAP distance priors," to test a variety of dark energy models. We test a time-dependent w with a present value constrained as -0.33<1+w_0<0.21 (95% CL). Temperature and matter fluctuations obey the adiabatic relation to within 8.9% and 2.1% for the axion and curvaton-type dark matter, respectively. The TE and EB spectra constrain cosmic parity-violation. We find the limit on the total mass of neutrinos, sum(m_nu)<0.67 eV (95% CL), which is free from the uncertainty in the normalization of the large-scale structure data. The effective number of neutrino species is constrained as N_{eff} = 4.4+-1.5 (68%), consistent with the standard value of 3.04. Finally, limits on primordial non-Gaussianity are -9<f_{NL}^{local}<111 and -151<f_{NL}^{equil}<253 (95% CL) for the local and equilateral models, respectively.

So what's going on?

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.

* though perhaps it's worth taking a look at these aspects later"
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So, once more, and only once more:

-> there's only one person posting to this thread who seems to be trying to make a case that "Lambda-CDM theory" is (scientific) woo, and that's you, MM.

-> if you were interested in understanding what "Lambda-CDM theory" is, and how well it matches the relevant observations and experimental results, why not ask questions about papers such as the WMAP Year-5 one?

-> the tests of whether something is scientific woo or not are whether it has been intensely scrutinised, how much evidence there is to support it, whether it is falsifiable and/or verifiable, etc. By these criteria, "Lambda-CDM theory" is not scientific woo.

-> (this comes from some other posts) "empirical", as the term is used by most scientists, refers to the formulation of testable hypotheses and their testing (that's the key part relevant here); by this criterion, "Lambda-CDM theory" is empirical (or, if you prefer, has been tested, empirically). However, you, MM, have made it abundantly clear, in a great many posts in this thread, that you have a different, non-standard (idiosyncratic?) meaning for that term, one that seems to me to be vague, inconsistent (or inconsistently applied), and rather less than useful wrt cosmology.

Now, for avoidance of doubt, I have no intention of going over this yet again, so unless there are some relevant new aspects or questions, I'm done with this part of my comments.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Part II, the claim

While MM has made many sweeping statements about aurorae, the solar wind, planetary rings, coronal loops, and solar jets, the data are most consistent about just three:

1) coronal loops: these are "electrical discharges", which were predicted, simulated and explained by Birkeland.

2) solar jets: predicted, simulated and explained by Birkeland.

3) the solar wind: there are three separate things mentioned, "solar wind acceleration", "high speed solar wind", and "solar wind concepts". For all three, MM claims that Birkeland successfully predicted, described, simulated, and explained them ("actually been physically shown to work empirically, in a lab, with control mechanisms").

I feel a pause would be a good idea, before going on to Part III, to give readers a chance to comment and ask questions, and also for MM to perhaps make clarifications of anything I've written - or that he's written - so far.

 

[Michael Mozina]

While MM has made many sweeping statements about aurorae.....

These last few posts of your should have been posted in the PC thread rather than here in this one. I'm still waiting for you folks to explain how three different hypothetical entities, inflation, DE and SUSY hypotheses can be stuffed into one thing and be called a "theory"? What exactly constitutes a "theory' vs. a "hypothesis" anyway?

 

[Michael Mozina]

I imagine that words with a similar meaning were written ~100 years after Newton published his theory of gravity too ... and that theory wasn't overturned until the early 20th century.

Yet Homo sapiens has been around for merely a million years or so, and science only 500 (or a couple of thousand, YMMV).

And yet how more radical could a theory be overturned, than by replacing a force with geometry?

From where does you evident confidence in the permanence of GR come?

For example, it has been known for many decades now that QM and GR are mutually incompatible at a very fundamental level ... so at least one must be overturned sometime, and possibly both.

You are missing the point IMO. The "confidence" in gravity does not come from the math, it comes from experience. I *experience* gravity here and now. I know therefore with *confidence* that it exists in nature, even if I know absolutely nothing about the math, and even if I had no faith in the ultimate outcome of GR-QM debate. Even if GR is replaced, one "math formula" will simply be substituted for another, and gravity will not actually change one iota as it relate to "human experience". It will still "feel" exactly the same the following day.

We have gained confidence in gravity, EM fields, etc because they have all been empirically demonstrated and they have been shown to exist in nature. The confidence comes from the empirical nature of the experience of these things, not from the math.

First, as I said, "DE" has at least two different meanings.

That sounds like a convenient way to create "wiggle room" to me.

In one it is merely a shorthand for the sum total of all relevant observations (CMB, SNe Ia, BAO, ...). As such, it cannot be "overturned", by definition ... any more than any other collection of observational data can.

Er, why not just call it "acceleration"?

In another it is merely a part of GR,

Bzzt! No cause/effect relationship was ever demonstrated between gravity and acceleration. That was a pure act of faith.

Of course, there are specific hypotheses which may well be overturned, quintessence, for example (MM seems to be ignorant of this nuance, but then he seems to deny that lambda is 'merely' a part of GR to begin with).

MM doesn't much care about your nuances because you can't demonstrate any of it. Acceleration is not "dark energy", it's just "acceleration". There has never been a cause/effect relationship established between DE and acceleration either, so both claims are false or pure acts of faith, one or the other.

Oh, and although some DE hypotheses are derived from, or part of, theories, AFAIK there is no such thing as "DE (the current theories that have come about due to red shift observations within the last several years)". It's tricky I know, but 'theory' has a rather different meaning in science than in everyday English (and it's quite different from any of the wide range of meanings that MM uses when penning that word).

I'm sure numerologist have all sorts of subtle things that have to be "learned properly" as well. It sounds to me like all this complication is specifically intended to hide the fact you couldn't actually "explain" the acceleration so you simply fudged the numbers with yet another metaphysical friend.

 

[Michael Mozina]

The only problem being, we know (or at least we think we know) that MACHOS cannot be the only explanation from microlensing experiments. Unless you want to object to GR again...

It's that "think we know" part I don't trust. There may be many factors contributing to those rotational curves, including "current flows" and serious flaws in our galaxy/mas estimation techniques. I certainly have no reason to believe that this "missing mass" is "special" in any way only based on GR.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Of course, that why we have other reasons for having it. Like the horizon problem.

How is that different than religion? There are lots of reasons why someone might be interested in stuffing the gaps of human ignorance with things that cannot be empirically demonstrated. It's not like you're trying to solve the horizon "problem" as you percieve it with a known and demonstrated force of nature. You're just "making one up" on the fly.

Well, without it GR gives no particular reason for space being flat. Though it is rather conveinient. If space was highly curved we probably wouldn't exist. Without a scientific theory like inflation we're left with a very big problem.

I don't see how it's much of a "problem". The universe is as it is. If we seek to understand it, we may fail, but it's not actually a 'problem' other than the fact we can't adequately explain it using known forces of nature.

Good answer. But what you don't know about the Universe doesn't mean other people don't have a good idea.

But if you intend to claim you have the "answer", don't you think someone will expect you to demonstrate your claim, and shouldn't it be your responsibility to do so?

That's why its a good job it explains multiple observations. The question you asked was did it have any effect on the Universe today (or words to that effect). To which the resounding answer is "YES", if the theory is a good one since its probably responsible for the whole structure of the Universe. And since inflation can account for multiple observations most of us seem to think its a good theory. You could always offer up an alternative if you so desired.

You've created a "prophetic" theory, one that professes to already know that the universe was "created" and one that insists all matter and energy were once collected to one point in spacetime. It's not based only on observation because Alfven's BB theory does *not* require that all matter and energy be condensed to a point. Furthermore, the way you "accounted for" the things you couldn't otherwise explain is to simply "fudge the numbers" with things that have never been shown to exist in nature. DE isn't actually "explained" in the first place, and the whole thing is "postdicted" all along. It's not particularly surprising you finally got things to fit given that the theory is only 4% actual physics and 96% fudge factor based on 3 different hypothetical entities. I'd be shocked it you couldn't make it fit anything and everything.

Now you're just spouting rubbish again. You said you were OK with GR and then you say that our current cosmological paradigm which is entirely consistent with and governed by GR is only 4% physics. You really are a bit confused, aren't you?

Not at all. You never established a cause/effect relationship between gravity and inflation or between gravity and DE. You just stuffed those metaphysical bad boys into an otherwise elegant theory on physics. That brand of GR isn't GR anymore, it's "woo" with a GR facade.

 

[Michael Mozina]

The person who couldn't defend his opinions with science and resorts to an argument from a long list of people accusing somebody who tears his pathetic list to shreds of not being able to provide empirical evidence. I can't find the words to describe the level of hypocrisy here.

There is no hypocrisy involved. All you should NEED to do is demonstrate inflation is real, and that DE isn't just a fudge factor of your theory. It's not as though the background of anyone on that list even matters so long as you can simply demonstrate your point empirically.

In retrospect however DRD was simply doing what he/she was asked to do. I'm still not clear why DRD chose to "take up the cause", but I retracted my criticisms of these actions already.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Now I think it's fair to say that MM, the OP, is of the (strong) opinion that "Lambda-CDM theory" is, in fact, woo.

Why?

Clearly not because of reasons of falsifiability, verifiability,

That is absolutely false. You can't "verify" anything. Your inflation doesn't exist in nature today so unlike something like a neutrino, your theory *cannot ever* be verified. It's a *PURE* act of blind faith. Falsification is also utterly impossible. When inflation failed to accurately predict acceleration you stuffed Lambda-Gumby theory full of "dark energy". When those falsification opportunities like dark flows show up, you ignore them at first, incorporate them later, and then add them to your list of claimed "predictive triumphs"! It's absurd.

The reason it's "woo" is quite obvious. Guth literally invented inflation, and later DE was stuffed in the gaps just to keep the Guth inflation cult alive. This is like a weird version of Scientology.

 

[Skwinty]

I see that you followed this by referencing Feyerabend ... may I ask if you think there have been any Kuhnian revolutions in physics, over the last handful of centuries?

There have been many revolutions in Science, but whether Kuhn can be given credit for them is unlikely. This topic suitable for Religion and Philosophy

Specifically, to what extent do you consider replacing the leading (only viable) theory of 'gravity' - as a force - with one in which it is 'merely' geometry a 'necessary adjustment'?

I dont like the words : Force of Gravity. Einstein said there is no such thing. Look, Science has lots of incredible success stories and probably lots of really bad stories. On the whole, however, science is right if you buy into the ideal. As far as replacing any section of science, the industry will do that when the right evidence is presented.

Cosmology is another story, because direct observations are very costly, ie you need a space mission etc.
Most of Cosmology, IMO, is based on a lots of indirect observations and lots of inferrences are made. I don't have a problem with that.
But, proponents should always be aware of the metaphysical roots.

So, may I ask how you would answer the question in this thread's title: "Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?"

The theory IMO is not woo, but it does have many metaphysical roots .
PS Baryshev has 18 published papers in about 10 years.
I also tend to agree with a lot of what Feyerabend and Kuhn have to say.
Did you read the article about Against Method, anything goes.

 

[sol invictus]

These last few posts of your should have been posted in the PC thread rather than here in this one. I'm still waiting for you folks to explain how three different hypothetical entities, inflation, DE and SUSY hypotheses can be stuffed into one thing and be called a "theory"? What exactly constitutes a "theory' vs. a "hypothesis" anyway?

Now SUSY is part of this too? You really have no idea how this all fits together, do you?

Let me try to explain in case there is anyone else reading.

Inflation is a theory - or class of theories - about the expansion of the universe in the first fraction of a second after the big bang. If there is a scalar field in nature with a potential that satisfies a few conditions (that it not be too rapidly varying), and if there was even a small region in the early universe in which that field was more or less homogeneous, then that part of the space expanded exponentially rapidly, producing a very large region which is both homogeneous (constant density), constant temperature, and spatially flat - plus a spectrum of small density perturbations which arises due to quantum fluctuations and is nearly scale-invariant.

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. If you like, you can think of it as an explanation for the otherwise extremely peculiar conditions we know were in place about a second after the big bang.

None of that has anything to do with dark energy or SUSY.

Dark energy is the name given to whatever force is responsible for the current acceleration of the expansion of the universe, which has now been detected by at least three independent measurements. One possible explanation for that is an extremely small positive cosmological constant. Considering that quantum mechanics predicts that it should be very large, understanding why the CC is so small is considered a profound and central question. There is no reason - theoretical or experimental - to think that DE has anything at all to do with inflation. DE is the only one of these three that's part of the theory this thread is named after.

Supersymmetry is a hypothetical symmetry for which there is no experimental evidence (unlike either inflation or dark energy). It has the virtue of resolving several puzzles in particle physics, but the detriment of introducing many new and undetermined parameters into the theory. If it exists it has essentially zero effect on inflation, but it does have some effect on the CC problem - it reduces it from explaining why a naturally gargantuan number is very small to explaining merely why a naturally extremely large number is so small. It has essentially nothing to do with cosmology, except that it does provide a natural dark matter particle. However so do many, many other theories.

Think of Lambda-CDM as a machine that, given some initial conditions, produces an output. Fed the right conditions, the output matches what we observe.

Think of inflation as a machine that, given almost any initial conditions, produces precisely the right initial conditions to feed Lambda-CDM.

Think of SUSY as something else entirely (which happens to contain a particle that could be dark matter).

 

[Dancing David]

Why should I? I certainly believe that we grossly underestimate the mass in many galaxies, and I'm sure MACHO forms of "dark matter" exist in nature. As long as you aren't stuffing hypothetical SUSY particles in there, I'll let you use "dark matter" in the form of MACHO forms of dark matter, neutrinos, etc.



Those properties of invisibility sound like more dogma to me. Got any such 'dark matter" that doesn't interact directly with light, or did you just mean neutrinos?



Of course I'll answer. I really don't doubt we underestimate the mass of a galaxy in many instances and I'm sure there is mass that is not accounted for in such galaxies. I don't have any believe in SUSY theory however, but there are some known forms of mass I will let you use as well, like neutrinos for instance.



I guess I'm in the camp of the missing mass option group.



I don't avoid anything. I explain what I can explain using known forces of nature and I admit when I can't explain something. Unlike Guth I don't just play make believe with math formulas.



Let me be clear here. I have no problem allowing you to stuff the gaps of your missing galactic mass with neutrinos and MACHO forms of "dark matter". If you start stuffing the gaps of your missing mass with SUSY particles I will of course expect you to provide physical (not mathematical) evidence of their existence in nature. The term "dark matter' has changed a great deal over the years. In my day it referred to simply matter we could not yet identify, not necessarily anything related to SUSY theory.

Thank you for such a reasonable response, I have to read another page of the thread before I see what is addressed or not in the posts since your response.

This is the kind of argument that should be made.

You don't like partciles/energy that interacts only through the gravitational force, fine, but what is the alternative, there are reasons that MACHOs are ruled out but I have to read so I don't duplicate or look foolish compared to better answers.

 

[sol invictus]

Those properties of invisibility sound like more dogma to me. Got any such 'dark matter" that doesn't interact directly with light, or did you just mean neutrinos?

It sounds like "dogma" to you, and then you give an example? Neutrinos are almost certainly too light to be DM, but otherwise would be a good candidate.

MACHOs - for example ~solar mass black holes - are another possibility, but they are strongly disfavored by lensing experiments and by the fact that there's no known mechanism that would produce enough of them to add up to DM.

If you start stuffing the gaps of your missing mass with SUSY particles I will of course expect you to provide physical (not mathematical) evidence of their existence in nature. The term "dark matter' has changed a great deal over the years. In my day it referred to simply matter we could not yet identify, not necessarily anything related to SUSY theory.

Nonsense. The term means precisely what it always did. SUSY is among the possibilities - that's all.

 

[Dancing David]

Thanks. I cannot easily confirm your comments about the signatories. I was able to find out a little about some of them on the Internet and they appeared to have credentials in physics, astronomy and cosmology. Accepting your analysis (provisionally), I would agree that my conclusion that the list was "impressive" was at best premature and at worst in error.

Arp is impressive, his use of statictics is wrong headed.

He insists that somehow QsOs aquirre mass in deifance of all exhibited physics. Some have claimed Narlikar has a GR solution that provides for the creation of mass and the aberant red shift Arp uses. however some have said the math is flawed. Now part of it is an attempt to revive the steady state universe. And he just seems to want to ignore teh Sloan survey as a source of control sample that could prove or disprove his theory.

Arp is a great man and has done great astronomy, he made a large catalogue of gravitational disrupted objects.

His use of statictics is appalling and a true error by a great astronomer.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Now SUSY is part of this too?

You tell me, it's your theory. I have no basic complaint about the notion of "missing mass", MACHO and neutrino types of "dark matter" theories or anything based on known particles and forms of matter.

You really have no idea how this all fits together, do you?

These "posturing" type statements aren't winning you any points with anyone.

Let me try to explain in case there is anyone else reading.

Inflation is a theory - or class of theories - about the expansion of the universe in the first fraction of a second after the big bang.

What makes it a "theory" if it's based on a "hypothetical" entity?

If there is a scalar field in nature with a potential that satisfies a few conditions

The problem was found in the "If" you put at the start of that sentence. *If* you could demonstrate such a thing exists and satisfies those specific requirements we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place. It's the fact you posdicted the idea based on pure "need" and then "created it" from human imagination that makes your theory fall apart. You simply created a list of requirements and whipped up inflation to fit all those requirements.

None of that has anything to do with dark energy or SUSY.

Correct. DE was "invented" to save "inflation theory" because the inflation theories of the time failed to "predict" acceleration. DE was just a "gap filler" to keep inflation theory alive. SUSY theory is just another gap filler you can't demonstrate either. SUSY theory has at least some hope of being tested for in real 'experiments' so it's not technically "woo", whereas inflation is pure woo because it doesn't exist or have any affect on anything. It's only use in physics is to save your otherwise dead theory. The same is true of "dark energy". SUSY theory at least is something that is considered and studied in other fields of science and appears in literature that is unrelated to astronomy. It's the very least of your worries frankly. The dead inflation deity is one that requires the most "pure faith".

Dark energy is the name given to whatever force is responsible for the current acceleration of the expansion of the universe, which has now been detected by at least three independent measurements.

It's just a gap filler to keep your inflation theory alive and kicking. It's not even necessary in fact. Other known vector fields would do just fine.

One possible explanation for that is an extremely small positive cosmological constant.

This statement is pure gibberish. You'll need a *force* or *curvature* to explain acceleration, no a "cosmological constant". You guys keep stuffing GR with metaphysics and you offer no actual *physical explanations* of any sort.

Supersymmetry is a hypothetical symmetry for which there is no experimental evidence (unlike either inflation or dark energy).

This is pure BS. There is no experimental evidence for either inflation or DE. SUSY theory is actually the only part of your hypothesis that has any hope of actually being found in an experiment or any hope of surviving long term. Inflation has *zero* "experimental" support. None, nada, zip.

Think of inflation as a machine that, given almost any initial conditions, produces precisely the right initial conditions to feed Lambda-CDM.

Er, sure. Then think of God as the being the one who created exactly those right conditions and used inflation to create the universe. I guess is you dress these things up with cute slogans and nifty verbiage, maybe folks won't notice you "made it up" in a purely ad hoc manner.

 

[Dancing David]

Whoa... you believe that paper? It says that the energy in EM fields does not redshift with the expansion of the universe!! You'd better go back and argue with the other MM that was here, because he ranted on and on about how every form of energy must decrease with expansion!

That's going to be entertaining to watch!
The ironic thing is, both of you are wrong...

And the last sentence which I did understand!

"Thus, not only the true nature of dark energy could be established without resorting to new physics, but also the value of the cosmological constant would find a natural explanation in the context of standard inflationary cosmology. "

 

[Michael Mozina]

It sounds like "dogma" to you, and then you give an example? Neutrinos are almost certainly too light to be DM, but otherwise would be a good candidate.

This is why I have no particular beef with neutrino based "dark matter" theories, or MACHO theories. I know they exist in nature.

MACHOs - for example ~solar mass black holes - are another possibility, but they are strongly disfavored by lensing experiments and by the fact that there's no known mechanism that would produce enough of them to add up to DM.

That is another viable candidate to explain galactic rotational patterns.

Nonsense. The term means precisely what it always did. SUSY is among the possibilities - that's all.

Like I've said, SUSY theory is the least of your worries. It actually lends credibility to your theory because it's one part that *might actually be testable* in a real experiment. It is however a non standard brand of particle physics theory, and it's yet a *third* hypothetical entity that is required in your so called "theory".

 

[temporalillusion]

You're still out on a limb here IMO. These studies also included some type of physical "control/change" that was relatively easy to define. For instance, from you second Wiki link:

The smoking ban would be a physical equivalent of a control mechanism in such a case, and even in this case the results are "questionable".

That's the point, you can't control things directly so you have to control them indirectly by changing your observation. The results are more difficult to interpret or isolate compared to a lab controlled setting, but that doesn't make them invalid. They seem to have ways to measure and describe how reliable the results are.

Yes, and it's a common atheists cry that "belief" is either supported by empirical evidence or it is an act of faith. There never can be empirical evidence of inflation therefore it must forever be an act of faith.

So you say, but the evidence has been presented in this thread. Not in lab evidence, but through a natural experiment.

Sol did a handwave thing and ignored every paper I offered him, on two different topics. Let's see you demonstrate this density property exists in a "demonstrated" particle/field, not a "theorized" one that is totally open to interpretation.

I meant he addressed it when he talked about your subjective judgment.

You would still require a control group, and physically unique situations to make this claim. Since you can't do that here, there is not a 'natural experiment' in play. It's simply a pure observation of distant events and there is nothing to use as a control device because humans aren't involved in those processes.

There is a natural experiment in play; the universe. How do things look close? Far away? In different directions? Different wavelengths? Mountains of different observations in different ways to isolate the variables.

I think you're still confusing a "controlled/semi controlled experiment" with a pure observation. What is the "control" mechanism you intend to use in space? Considering that Lambda theory keeps morphing, is there even a NULL hypothesis?

The difference between a pure observation and a quasi-experiment would be in the actual details of the observation. The control is other observations.

Stellar evolution can't be produced in a lab, the only thing we have to deduce it is observations. So we observe many stars in many environments, use other things like distance, environment of the star, etc to come up with a model for stellar evolution.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

[...]

First, as I said, "DE" has at least two different meanings.

That sounds like a convenient way to create "wiggle room" to me.

In one it is merely a shorthand for the sum total of all relevant observations (CMB, SNe Ia, BAO, ...). As such, it cannot be "overturned", by definition ... any more than any other collection of observational data can.

Er, why not just call it "acceleration"?

In another it is merely a part of GR,

Bzzt! No cause/effect relationship was ever demonstrated between gravity and acceleration. That was a pure act of faith.

[...]

I know there was some discussion on semantics earlier, either in this thread or another, but I must say I'm astonished to read what you wrote, MM.

Whether you like, or dislike, the particular word that speakers of a (speech) community choose to use for a concept is surely irrelevant?

It is extremely easy to establish that "DE" does, in fact, have the meanings I listed, using the standard empirical tools of dictionary compilers and linguists.

Sure, astronomers have some crazy words - "metals" for instance - and still stick with some ridiculous units - "magnitudes" for instance - but neither you nor I get to have a say in their usage, just as we have no influence over any other word, or phrase, used by any sizable speech community.

But I guess I should also thank you ... this post of yours is about as good a piece of evidence to verify - empirically - the current version of my hypothesis; namely, "that your use of language is so incoherent, and so inconsistent, that it is not possible to have a meaningful discussion with you."

 

[Perpetual Student]

I imagine that words with a similar meaning were written ~100 years after Newton published his theory of gravity too ... and that theory wasn't overturned until the early 20th century.

Yet Homo sapiens has been around for merely a million years or so, and science only 500 (or a couple of thousand, YMMV).

And yet how more radical could a theory be overturned, than by replacing a force with geometry?

From where does you evident confidence in the permanence of GR come?

For example, it has been known for many decades now that QM and GR are mutually incompatible at a very fundamental level ... so at least one must be overturned sometime, and possibly both.

I guess we are struggling with subtitles of the word "overturned."
I do not regard GR as having overturned Newton, in spite of the fact that geometry replaced force, as you put it. The inverse square law and other aspects of gravity discovered by Newton still hold up quite well.
I prefer to view it as GR having expanded and revised Newtonian physics. I doubt seriously that any future theories of gravity (although they may change perspective -- like from geometry to quibtrack theory), can change much of the fundamental testable consequences of GR.