And you got distracted, again, from dark matter. Can you type these words: "weakly-interacting particle dark matter is a hypothesis"? Do you know what they mean? Do you agree with them?
Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?
- Thread starter Michael Mozina
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And you got distracted, again, from dark matter. Can you type these words: "weakly-interacting particle dark matter is a hypothesis"? Do you know what they mean? Do you agree with them?
DeiRenDopa
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I should have said (bold part is the edit):
every one of the ideas proposed, here in JREF, under the umbrella of "EU/PC theory" (or Electric Universe, or Plasma Cosmology) has been examined, in considerable detail, here in JREF, and shown to be internally inconsistent, inconsistent with well-established theory where the domains of applicability overlap, and/or inconsistent with relevant experimental and observational results.
Obviously, we, here in JREF, can't examine something which we don't know about and which hasn't been presented here!
Michael Mozina
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FYI, I am going to be offline for awhile as I work to complete some new features of our software that are about ready to ship. Don't take it personally. 
Perpetual Student
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FYI, I am going to be offline for awhile as I work to complete some new features of our software that are about ready to ship. Don't take it personally.
A software developers work is never done, so please, take as much time as you need. Don't take this personally.
DeiRenDopa
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Here's an interesting, very recent, preprint:
Weak lensing from space: first cosmological constraints from three-point shear statistics:
Nice; stare at a few patches of sky, with the optical/NIR telescope with the best angular resolution, and record mountains of data. Extract information about ~half a million galaxies, do some detailed analyses using the empirically tested (in spades!) theory called General Relativity, and out pops a remarkable result (one that's objective, and can be independently verified): the observations are consistent with the cosmological model - down to the specific values of parameters used therein - derived from observations of the CMB!
Truly magic; what's half a million galaxies got to do with a near perfect, nearly-isotropic ~2.73K blackbody?!?
Weak lensing from space: first cosmological constraints from three-point shear statistics:
Its status? "MNRAS submitted".Abstract said:
Nice; stare at a few patches of sky, with the optical/NIR telescope with the best angular resolution, and record mountains of data. Extract information about ~half a million galaxies, do some detailed analyses using the empirically tested (in spades!) theory called General Relativity, and out pops a remarkable result (one that's objective, and can be independently verified): the observations are consistent with the cosmological model - down to the specific values of parameters used therein - derived from observations of the CMB!
Truly magic; what's half a million galaxies got to do with a near perfect, nearly-isotropic ~2.73K blackbody?!?
Tim Thompson
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EU/PC - No Such Thing
Plasma Cosmology (PC) is an idea that came originally from Alfven in the mid 1960's. This was a time when plasma physics and cosmology were both in the early stages of their modern form, both wide open sciences, both rife with speculation more than with "hard science"' and neither had yet developed into its current form. Plasma cosmology was a legitimate attempt on the part of Alfven to show that plasma physics could answer questions that cosmologists were still laboring over, especially concerning the formation of structure in the form of galaxies & stars. It is not surprising that Alfven would champion his intellectual brainchild in this way. Birkeland had done the same thing decades before. Both Alfven & Birkeland were not lacking in either intelligence or experience, so it is not surprising that they both made reasonable and often correct guesses. But nobody is always correct, so it is not surprising that many of their more speculative ideas also turned out to be quite wrong. In the case of plasma cosmology, it eventually fell by the wayside as observational & theoretical cosmology both came of age together. We now know that problems, such as large scale structure and galaxy formation, which Alfven sought to solve via plasma physics, can be handled quite well by standard gravitational physics, but that the plasma approach actually causes more problems than it solves. It is important to note that in no way do astrophysicists & cosmologists ignore plasma physics; quite the opposite, plasma physics is a key element throughout both. It is just that modern scientists have learned how to include all of the various physical disciplines together in a mode comprehensive, and thus complete, view of cosmology. Pure plasma cosmology is no longer a scientifically viable idea.
Electric universe (EU) cosmology is a far more extreme notion. Unlike plasma cosmology it was introduced relatively recently by people who are mostly scientific amateurs, and all inexperienced in astrophysics & cosmology. It never was, and never will be, a legitimate scientific hypothesis. I watched the invention of electric universe cosmology myself, from the outside. It was originally developed to explain alleged electric discharge columns and "plasma bridges" between planets, allegedly witnessed and recorded in ancient myths. The cult of "Saturnists" who invented the EU hypothesis hold that Earth orbited around Saturn before it orbited around the sun, in a polar configuration, such that the rings were seen face on from Earth at all times, and that Saturn was suspended over the north pole, as seen from Earth. But since its invention by the Saturnists, the EU hypothesis has become a major program of its own. The basic idea is that the universe is an electric circuit and stars are elements in the circuit. It was, and likely still is the case, that the "mainstream" EU hypothesis denies any nuclear fusion heating for stars and holds that all stellar energy comes from electric currents pumped into the star from the outside (Mozina's apparent acceptance of some nuclear heating is, as far as I know, a "non-mainstream" variation of the EU hypothesis). In the EU hypothesis gravity is essentially ignored and all cosmological processes as seen as dominated by pure electric currents, DC currents for all you electricity fans. It is an hypothesis which, in all of its forms, is easily rejected as a legitimate scientific hypothesis. As DRD suggests, see Tom Bridgman's EU blog for legitimate scientific responses to the EU "hypothesis".
PC was once a legitimate scientific hypothesis. Mozina, and others, put EU & PC together as EU/PC in an attempt to make EU look good by association with something that can claim some form of legitimacy. It's the same idea as trying to borrow legitimacy from the names & reputations of Alfven & Birkeland. The attentive reader must understand that "EU" as an alternative to standard LCDM cosmology is a non-scientific, really an anti-scientific religious mythology which does not even deserve any title formal as "hypothesis". On the other hand, while "PC" was once a legitimate scientific alternative to standard cosmology, it is no longer; its day has come & gone. There is no legitimate scientific program in plasma cosmology today that I am aware of. One must not accept the idea that "EU/PC" belong together in any way.
There are numerous references here, and in other threads, to "EU/PC theory" and such things. I will assert here for the interested reader that in fact the combination of "EU" and "PC" into the conglomerate "EU/PC" is a figment of the imagination (and wishful thinking) more than it is a reality. Mozina tries to legitimize his crackpot ideas by illegitimately associating them with legitimate scientists (e.g., Alfven & Birkeland). He is doing the same thing here, though even less effectively, since "PC" no longer carries the legitimacy it once did. The two ideas, EU & PC are notably different and this should be pointed out.
Plasma Cosmology (PC) is an idea that came originally from Alfven in the mid 1960's. This was a time when plasma physics and cosmology were both in the early stages of their modern form, both wide open sciences, both rife with speculation more than with "hard science"' and neither had yet developed into its current form. Plasma cosmology was a legitimate attempt on the part of Alfven to show that plasma physics could answer questions that cosmologists were still laboring over, especially concerning the formation of structure in the form of galaxies & stars. It is not surprising that Alfven would champion his intellectual brainchild in this way. Birkeland had done the same thing decades before. Both Alfven & Birkeland were not lacking in either intelligence or experience, so it is not surprising that they both made reasonable and often correct guesses. But nobody is always correct, so it is not surprising that many of their more speculative ideas also turned out to be quite wrong. In the case of plasma cosmology, it eventually fell by the wayside as observational & theoretical cosmology both came of age together. We now know that problems, such as large scale structure and galaxy formation, which Alfven sought to solve via plasma physics, can be handled quite well by standard gravitational physics, but that the plasma approach actually causes more problems than it solves. It is important to note that in no way do astrophysicists & cosmologists ignore plasma physics; quite the opposite, plasma physics is a key element throughout both. It is just that modern scientists have learned how to include all of the various physical disciplines together in a mode comprehensive, and thus complete, view of cosmology. Pure plasma cosmology is no longer a scientifically viable idea.
Electric universe (EU) cosmology is a far more extreme notion. Unlike plasma cosmology it was introduced relatively recently by people who are mostly scientific amateurs, and all inexperienced in astrophysics & cosmology. It never was, and never will be, a legitimate scientific hypothesis. I watched the invention of electric universe cosmology myself, from the outside. It was originally developed to explain alleged electric discharge columns and "plasma bridges" between planets, allegedly witnessed and recorded in ancient myths. The cult of "Saturnists" who invented the EU hypothesis hold that Earth orbited around Saturn before it orbited around the sun, in a polar configuration, such that the rings were seen face on from Earth at all times, and that Saturn was suspended over the north pole, as seen from Earth. But since its invention by the Saturnists, the EU hypothesis has become a major program of its own. The basic idea is that the universe is an electric circuit and stars are elements in the circuit. It was, and likely still is the case, that the "mainstream" EU hypothesis denies any nuclear fusion heating for stars and holds that all stellar energy comes from electric currents pumped into the star from the outside (Mozina's apparent acceptance of some nuclear heating is, as far as I know, a "non-mainstream" variation of the EU hypothesis). In the EU hypothesis gravity is essentially ignored and all cosmological processes as seen as dominated by pure electric currents, DC currents for all you electricity fans. It is an hypothesis which, in all of its forms, is easily rejected as a legitimate scientific hypothesis. As DRD suggests, see Tom Bridgman's EU blog for legitimate scientific responses to the EU "hypothesis".
PC was once a legitimate scientific hypothesis. Mozina, and others, put EU & PC together as EU/PC in an attempt to make EU look good by association with something that can claim some form of legitimacy. It's the same idea as trying to borrow legitimacy from the names & reputations of Alfven & Birkeland. The attentive reader must understand that "EU" as an alternative to standard LCDM cosmology is a non-scientific, really an anti-scientific religious mythology which does not even deserve any title formal as "hypothesis". On the other hand, while "PC" was once a legitimate scientific alternative to standard cosmology, it is no longer; its day has come & gone. There is no legitimate scientific program in plasma cosmology today that I am aware of. One must not accept the idea that "EU/PC" belong together in any way.
Thanks for the essay Tim. I had never encountered any of either PC or EU prior to encountering Zeuzzz and Mozina on JREF. I'm guilty of lumping them together myself. Why? Well, because MM isn't usually actually defending a hypothesis that can be identified with one or the other. He's got a single, repeated complaint about mainstream cosmology; he wants an alternative which has something to do with electric current---but it's very hard to get him to state the details of that "something". Sometimes there are some PC keywords (Perratt, Arp, etc.), sometimes some EU keywords (sun-as-cathode, etc.), but there's nothing that can even be called a hypothesis---neither EU nor PC. There's nothing that can even be called a story---like, say, "the Earth used to be a moon of Saturn (!) until Rael called it down"---at least EU had a story. The only consistent feature is the anti-cosmology rants.
Perpetual Student
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Well now, what about your 96% invisible deities and math bunnies? How do you *ACCOUNT* for them?
DeiRenDopa
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(bold added)
Halton Arp is a big hero to EU proponents.
His story - told in the first person in his book, Seeing Red - feeds right into the conspiracy theory parts of the EU story - honest, hard-working astronomer is suppressed by a hostile community because his research findings fly in the face of the Big Bang dogma (or something like that).
Then there's the fact that 'intrinsic redshift' seems - to EU proponents - to address perhaps the most powerful observational evidence for Big Bang theories, and certainly the oldest; namely, the Hubble distance-redshift relationship.
One of the particularly ironic aspect of this praise for Arp is that 'intrinsic redshift' has never been produced in any lab, is not predicted by any plasma physics, nor can be explained by any such! In fact, in one of Peratt's papers there is a nice sentence about how Arpian 'intrinsic redshift', if observationally confirmed, would be inconsistent with Peratt's own PC models and hypotheses.
grmcdorman
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I'm having difficulty envisioning an orbit in which this is possible. Is this a classic misunderstanding of "polar orbit" as "always above the pole" v.s. "passes above the pole"?
I suppose with the appropriate locked rotation one could have it always above the North pole, but I simply can't see how the rings could always be face-on.
Tim Thompson
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Cosmos Without Gravitation
The Saturn myth comes from Immanuel Velikovsky, he of "Worlds in Collision" fame. The EU cosmology also comes from Velikovsky and is rooted in his much less well known tour-de-force booklet Cosmos Without Gravitation, in which Velikovsky argues that gravity is in fact an entirely electromagnetic phenomenon (one of the reasons he gives for dismissing gravity as a real force is that clouds remain suspended "in defiance of gravity").
I think the EU idea originally comes from an attempt to lock Earth into a polar orbit around Saturn by coupling the magnetic fields of Earth and Saturn thus providing an appropriate torque (I remember arguing with Talbott about the physical difficulty of such a thing). Following Velikovsky in getting rid of gravity altogether makes life a lot simpler for the Saturnists. But I think they have drifted away from pushing the Saturn Myth and have moved on to the EU.
That's because it is obviously fantastically impossible. But simple impossibility rarely interferes with belief (certainly Mozina himself is a good example of this peculiar attitude). I have not heard much from the Saturnists for many years, and all of the websites seem to be many years old now. Still, see The Saturn Myth webpage. And Amazon.com still has links to David Talbott's old book The Saturn Myth, though I did not remember that it was as old as 1980 (there is also some mention of the polar configuration and related "scholarly papers" on David Talbott's Wikipedia page and several web links to Talbott's book are still out there).
The Saturn myth comes from Immanuel Velikovsky, he of "Worlds in Collision" fame. The EU cosmology also comes from Velikovsky and is rooted in his much less well known tour-de-force booklet Cosmos Without Gravitation, in which Velikovsky argues that gravity is in fact an entirely electromagnetic phenomenon (one of the reasons he gives for dismissing gravity as a real force is that clouds remain suspended "in defiance of gravity").
I think the EU idea originally comes from an attempt to lock Earth into a polar orbit around Saturn by coupling the magnetic fields of Earth and Saturn thus providing an appropriate torque (I remember arguing with Talbott about the physical difficulty of such a thing). Following Velikovsky in getting rid of gravity altogether makes life a lot simpler for the Saturnists. But I think they have drifted away from pushing the Saturn Myth and have moved on to the EU.
DeiRenDopa
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Thornhill, for example (he's currently one of the EU high priests), has developed the idea that gravity is merely electric dipoles (or some such nonsense), complete with pretty pictures (EU proponents just love pictures! IIRC, every single one of the "models" is no more than a picture or two).
grmcdorman
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I see. What confused me was that it was called an orbit - which, as you clarify and the Saturn Myth web page makes clear, it's not; it's suspended over one of Saturn's poles. Thanks, Tim.
Tim Thompson
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XENON100 and Dark Matter: The Real Story IV
To begin with, Mozina rather dishonestly treats his version of the XENON100 results as if they are a definitive proof, ignoring the fact that the claims made on behalf of the XENON100 experimental results are seriously questioned by other scientists working in the field (already twice documented by me and ignored by Mozina in this thread; see the linked posts above).
Remember that Mozina always prefers to deal with news reports and press releases, avoiding any contact with real science, or any necessity to engage in genuine intellectual exercises, whenever possible. This is a case in point, where Mozina relies on a press release, combined with its claims, and his more grandiose claims, while ignoring the scientific description of the experiment. In fact, he ignores all of the scientific descriptions of all dark matter laboratory experiments, and this makes his radical claims all the more untrustworthy. Consider, for instance, First Dark Matter Results from the XENON100 Experiment (Aprile, et al., 11 May 2010). One need only read the abstract to see this: " ... we observe no events and hence exclude spin-independent WIMP-nucleon elastic scattering cross sections above 3.4 x 10-44 cm2 for 55 GeV/c2 WIMPS at 90% confidence level. Below 20 GeV/c2, this result challenges the interpretation CoGeNT and DAMA signals as being due to spin-independent, elastic light mass WIMP interactions." Now, if we set aside the fact that the claims of the 2nd sentence are being actively challenged in the literature, and simply assume that it is true as stated, in what way does this "blow away" or "send up in flames", as Mozina likes to say, the idea of non-baryonic, non-standard dark matter? We see here, for instance, a restriction on WIMPS with a mass of 55 GeV/c2, but the WIMP mass range is likely to be roughly 10 - 1000 GeV/c2. Furthermore, WIMP interactions can be either spin-dependent or spin-independent, but XENON100 is directly sensitive only to spin-independent interactions. And finally, WIMP scattering cross sections are not well constrained, and might be anywhere from 10-42 to 10-48 cm2, but the XENON100 experiment has restricted its claims only to cross-sections greater than 10-44, leaving a few orders of magnitude of cross-section search space left untouched. One need only remember the caveat that these results are based on only 11.17 days of data, a very small amount for experiments of this nature. So as time goes by, and assuming the claims stand up to scrutiny, the XENON100 experiment will further restrict the parameter search space for low mass WIMP dark matter.
So if we restrict ourselves to only WIMP dark matter candidates, we can see that XENON100 has barely scratched the available search-space. Mozina seriously over-reacts to the lack of a direct detection in this experiment, ignoring both the technical scope of the experiment, as well as the very much disputed nature of the result. Mozina's posturing is exposed as pure propaganda, his usual offering in any case.
WIMP dark matter is most common in the literature because it is the easiest to look for, but do be aware that there is more to dark matter than simply WIMPS. See, for instance, Dark Matter Candidates from Particle Physics and Methods of Detection by Jonathan Feng (9 Apr 2010); Gif Lectures on Direct Detection of Dark Matter by Eric Armengaud (11 Mar 2010); Direct Detection of WIMPS by David Cerdeno & Anne Green (9 Feb 2010); Physics at underground laboratories: Direct detection of dark matter by Igor Irastorza (15 Nov 2009); Deep Underground Science and Engineering Lab - Dark Matter Working Group 2007 White Paper by D.S. Akerib & R.J. Gaitskell (2 Feb 2009). And see the October 2009 issue of the New Journal of Physics (an open-access online journal of physics) and scroll to the "focus on dark matter" section, for several papers on dark matter detection. These papers describe the physics of dark matter particles, and will give the reader an idea of the entire possible search space for non-baryonic, non-standard dark matter
It's all really very simple when you just bother to think about it. Mass results in gravity. We look at the universe and see more gravity than the visible mass can account for. So we assume there is extra mass that we can't see (yet). Does not sound like a radical assumption to me, though Mozina will tell you it is. This observation of extra gravity (it was called "missing mass" at the time, for hopefully obvious reasons) has been the case since the early 1930's. At first it was simply assumed that the "missing mass" was just ordinary stuff (dim stars, planets, dust clouds, & etc.) that astronomers just could not see. But since then we have opened up whole new vistas of multi-wavelength astronomy; infrared & radio on the long wavelength end, and ultraviolet & X-ray on the short wavelength end. We can now see all that stuff, even over intergalactic distances, and we can see it well enough now to assert with confidence that we don't see it because it is not there, and not because we just can't look deep enough. That was the case before, but is no longer the case today. So where is the "missing mass"? If it's not ordinary baryonic matter, that only leaves unordinary, non-baryonic dark matter. A perfectly reasonable assumption, though Mozina will tell you it is not.
So can we confirm by laboratory experiment that non-baryonic dark matter exits? Been there, done that. We all know that neutrinos exist and neutrinos are, whether we like it or not, non-baryonic dark matter. But there are not enough neutrinos to account for the astronomical observations that imply extra mass. So we have to extend the search to more massive particles. But once again, the idea is no more exotic than the simple hunch that there is more stuff laying around the universe, just like all the stuff we already know about, just more of it, and in some slightly different form, like maybe a neutrino with more mass (sometimes called a sneutrino, the supersymmetric partner for a neutrino; e.g., Demir, et al., 2010). Hopefully the reader will realize that none of this is really terribly exotic thinking, and the assumptions all along the way are reasonable and actually fairly ordinary. But Mozina will tell you it is all woo. Mind, he will never be able to give you a reason way, he will just say it and expect you to take his claims on faith, just as he himself takes a purely faith-based position.
Dark matter is entirely empirical and entirely scientific despite Mozina's wimpy claims to the contrary.
You know, Mozina has been called a liar so many times, by so many people, it hardly seems worth repeating. Liar, idiot, what's the difference, really? In any case, this statement has no shred of truth in it at all. Pure garbage. Of course, the XENON100 test was not a failure, and nothing went up in flames except Mozina's wishful thinking. I have made this clear in my earlier posts XENON100 and Dark Matter: The Real Story & XENON100 and Dark Matter: The Real Story III. The attentive reader will note that Mozina was unable to make any substantial response, limiting himself to a few no-content one liners, and ignoring most of the posts altogether.
To begin with, Mozina rather dishonestly treats his version of the XENON100 results as if they are a definitive proof, ignoring the fact that the claims made on behalf of the XENON100 experimental results are seriously questioned by other scientists working in the field (already twice documented by me and ignored by Mozina in this thread; see the linked posts above).
Remember that Mozina always prefers to deal with news reports and press releases, avoiding any contact with real science, or any necessity to engage in genuine intellectual exercises, whenever possible. This is a case in point, where Mozina relies on a press release, combined with its claims, and his more grandiose claims, while ignoring the scientific description of the experiment. In fact, he ignores all of the scientific descriptions of all dark matter laboratory experiments, and this makes his radical claims all the more untrustworthy. Consider, for instance, First Dark Matter Results from the XENON100 Experiment (Aprile, et al., 11 May 2010). One need only read the abstract to see this: " ... we observe no events and hence exclude spin-independent WIMP-nucleon elastic scattering cross sections above 3.4 x 10-44 cm2 for 55 GeV/c2 WIMPS at 90% confidence level. Below 20 GeV/c2, this result challenges the interpretation CoGeNT and DAMA signals as being due to spin-independent, elastic light mass WIMP interactions." Now, if we set aside the fact that the claims of the 2nd sentence are being actively challenged in the literature, and simply assume that it is true as stated, in what way does this "blow away" or "send up in flames", as Mozina likes to say, the idea of non-baryonic, non-standard dark matter? We see here, for instance, a restriction on WIMPS with a mass of 55 GeV/c2, but the WIMP mass range is likely to be roughly 10 - 1000 GeV/c2. Furthermore, WIMP interactions can be either spin-dependent or spin-independent, but XENON100 is directly sensitive only to spin-independent interactions. And finally, WIMP scattering cross sections are not well constrained, and might be anywhere from 10-42 to 10-48 cm2, but the XENON100 experiment has restricted its claims only to cross-sections greater than 10-44, leaving a few orders of magnitude of cross-section search space left untouched. One need only remember the caveat that these results are based on only 11.17 days of data, a very small amount for experiments of this nature. So as time goes by, and assuming the claims stand up to scrutiny, the XENON100 experiment will further restrict the parameter search space for low mass WIMP dark matter.
So if we restrict ourselves to only WIMP dark matter candidates, we can see that XENON100 has barely scratched the available search-space. Mozina seriously over-reacts to the lack of a direct detection in this experiment, ignoring both the technical scope of the experiment, as well as the very much disputed nature of the result. Mozina's posturing is exposed as pure propaganda, his usual offering in any case.
WIMP dark matter is most common in the literature because it is the easiest to look for, but do be aware that there is more to dark matter than simply WIMPS. See, for instance, Dark Matter Candidates from Particle Physics and Methods of Detection by Jonathan Feng (9 Apr 2010); Gif Lectures on Direct Detection of Dark Matter by Eric Armengaud (11 Mar 2010); Direct Detection of WIMPS by David Cerdeno & Anne Green (9 Feb 2010); Physics at underground laboratories: Direct detection of dark matter by Igor Irastorza (15 Nov 2009); Deep Underground Science and Engineering Lab - Dark Matter Working Group 2007 White Paper by D.S. Akerib & R.J. Gaitskell (2 Feb 2009). And see the October 2009 issue of the New Journal of Physics (an open-access online journal of physics) and scroll to the "focus on dark matter" section, for several papers on dark matter detection. These papers describe the physics of dark matter particles, and will give the reader an idea of the entire possible search space for non-baryonic, non-standard dark matter
Mozina paints a nice self portrait, describing his own completely religious, faith based position & activities quite well. There is of course a great deal of very substantial and completely empirical evidence in favor of both the dark matter & dark energy hypotheses, and this is well documented in many of my own posts on this and other threads (e.g., Dark Energy and Empirical Science, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Inflation and Real Science (copy 2) and posts cited within these). As we already know, Mozina's refuge from the truth is to invent his own personal version of "empirical" to hide behind, for fear that he might someday be forced to deal with real but unpleasant (to him) facts.
It's all really very simple when you just bother to think about it. Mass results in gravity. We look at the universe and see more gravity than the visible mass can account for. So we assume there is extra mass that we can't see (yet). Does not sound like a radical assumption to me, though Mozina will tell you it is. This observation of extra gravity (it was called "missing mass" at the time, for hopefully obvious reasons) has been the case since the early 1930's. At first it was simply assumed that the "missing mass" was just ordinary stuff (dim stars, planets, dust clouds, & etc.) that astronomers just could not see. But since then we have opened up whole new vistas of multi-wavelength astronomy; infrared & radio on the long wavelength end, and ultraviolet & X-ray on the short wavelength end. We can now see all that stuff, even over intergalactic distances, and we can see it well enough now to assert with confidence that we don't see it because it is not there, and not because we just can't look deep enough. That was the case before, but is no longer the case today. So where is the "missing mass"? If it's not ordinary baryonic matter, that only leaves unordinary, non-baryonic dark matter. A perfectly reasonable assumption, though Mozina will tell you it is not.
So can we confirm by laboratory experiment that non-baryonic dark matter exits? Been there, done that. We all know that neutrinos exist and neutrinos are, whether we like it or not, non-baryonic dark matter. But there are not enough neutrinos to account for the astronomical observations that imply extra mass. So we have to extend the search to more massive particles. But once again, the idea is no more exotic than the simple hunch that there is more stuff laying around the universe, just like all the stuff we already know about, just more of it, and in some slightly different form, like maybe a neutrino with more mass (sometimes called a sneutrino, the supersymmetric partner for a neutrino; e.g., Demir, et al., 2010). Hopefully the reader will realize that none of this is really terribly exotic thinking, and the assumptions all along the way are reasonable and actually fairly ordinary. But Mozina will tell you it is all woo. Mind, he will never be able to give you a reason way, he will just say it and expect you to take his claims on faith, just as he himself takes a purely faith-based position.
Dark matter is entirely empirical and entirely scientific despite Mozina's wimpy claims to the contrary.
Reality Check
Penultimate Amazing
Shouldn't this be "Dark matter is entirely empirical and entirely scientific despite Mozina's WIMPy claims to the contrary."
I just re-read an older Mozina dark matter thread. The striking thing about it is not just Mozina's poor science judgment and weird biases. It was that he was quite literally unable to grasp the basic idea of hypothesis testing. (see here.) MM was presented with this sequence:
a) Scientists came up with the hypothesis X about WIMPs being out there.
b) If X is true, the Fermi satellite expects to see Y.
c) Fermi was unable to determine whether or not it was seeing Y.
He couldn't wrap his mind around the conditional "if X is true" at all. As soon as he sees "hypothesis X about WIMPs" he insisted that our lack of knowledge about WIMPs had to be cleared up first. He doesn't get the idea of hypotheses being not-yet-fully-tested unknowns that you can write down in order to devise tests.
This is such a basic item of scientific method---or, heck, logic---it's really hard to step into the shoes of someone who doesn't get it. I suspect that it's behind basically every MM thread we've ever had.
- If vacuum energy exists AND GR is true, THEN the Universe should do ... wait stop vacuum energy is something you just made up!
- If statement X, Y, or Z about the solar corona is true, then the Sun's limb can look like A, B, or X ... stop it, you can't talk about the limb until you know exactly what the corona looks like
- If (all men are mortal) and (Socrates is a man), then ... stop stop stop, Birkeland didn't do empirical experiments on Socrates so you can't say that.
Seriously---has anyone ever seen Mozina make (or agree with) a well-formed conditional statement like "IF the mainstream hypothesis were true, then X would follow..." ? I don't think I have. I think it's a complete cognitive blind spot for him.
Tim Thompson
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The Message and the Messenger
One of the foundational principles of science is strict honesty on the part of the scientists. If I read a paper reporting some investigation and the results thereof, I assume the authors are telling the truth; that they really did what they say they did, and they really got the result that say they got. There have been some embarrassing high-profile cases of fraud in science over the years, and when such fraud is discovered, the consequences are usually quite harsh for the perpetrator because the act does so much damage to the trustworthiness of the entire discipline.
Now, I said ...
I stand by what I said. If it is not dishonest for him to do that, it certainly looks dishonest. If not personally dishonest, then it is intellectually dishonest, by virtue of ignoring key factual elements of the discussion as if they did not exist.
There cannot ever be any meaningful discussion of anything without an intrinsic sense of honesty on the part of all involved.
There are surely such rules, and it was the continuous stream of posts consisting of nothing but personal insults which lead to the iron sun thread being moderated. However, it is not possible, nor is it proper, to completely ignore the failings of the messenger when they play an active role in the failure of the message. If in fact an individual engages in deliberate dishonesty in a discussion, it is both material & proper to point it out. There is at this time a considerable amount of evidence that can be reasonably interpreted as deliberate dishonesty on Mozina's part, and I think it is correct & proper to make that point. He can read, and he knows what I wrote. But he continues the discussion as if it were not written at all, and that creates a serious problem.
One of the foundational principles of science is strict honesty on the part of the scientists. If I read a paper reporting some investigation and the results thereof, I assume the authors are telling the truth; that they really did what they say they did, and they really got the result that say they got. There have been some embarrassing high-profile cases of fraud in science over the years, and when such fraud is discovered, the consequences are usually quite harsh for the perpetrator because the act does so much damage to the trustworthiness of the entire discipline.
Now, I said ...
I stand by what I said. If it is not dishonest for him to do that, it certainly looks dishonest. If not personally dishonest, then it is intellectually dishonest, by virtue of ignoring key factual elements of the discussion as if they did not exist.
There cannot ever be any meaningful discussion of anything without an intrinsic sense of honesty on the part of all involved.
Michael Mozina
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Of course it is, but that has never stopped them or even slowed them down.
Their sacred beliefs have been questioned. In most religions they would just call me a pawn of satan. Since they can't do that, and their unseen entities are impotent on Earth, the best they can do is call me names. Michael Mozina
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That's the best you can do Tim? You know, people who live in glass houses should really refrain from such trash talking, particularly since you've never even acknowledged the problems with your theory!
What response is required Tim? Your exotic matter god is a complete no show in the lab! What did you expect me to say exactly? You won't even commit yourself to a single brand of exotic matter, you later in this same post "hedge your bets" with other brands of exotic matter besides that wimpy wimpy wimpy particle that never shows up on Earth.
Of course it's being "questioned" Tim, but there are lots of "scientists" involved in that paper and only a couple of "scientists' that seem to have a problem with their results. Now since it falsified (90% confidence) their previous observations, of course those two particular authors have "issues". So what? I've seen their criticism. They're weak at best. What they don't seem to like is the fact that these experiments poke holes in their previous experiments, particularly in the "fuzzy" areas of the lowest possible energy states for Wimps where other things might contribute to "hits", not simply Wimps.
Oh boloney. More huff and puff and character assassination.
Notice how their team notes that this finding flies in the face of the previous claims (by the authors now bitching about their work)?
The "challenge" seems more like pure ignorance on the part of the challengers as it relates to how their work was actually done in one case, and the sensitivity and the very lowest end of the energy scale where it's harder to determine "cause". So what? Again Tim, your critics have an emotional and professional interest in the outcome and they, like you absolutely refuse to acknowledge that your Wimps were a no show in the lab in more sensitive experiments.
Ya Tim, but the prior round of "tests" claimed to find interesting things in *THIS* energy range so it's naturally the first place to start your search! Oooops, epic fail!
Now that 4-55Gev range that showed so much promise in previous "tests" has been eliminated, and your gaps are shrinking. Notice that you won't even personally commit yourself to a single particle or a single energy state. You're making this up as you go and hoping like hell that the gaps don't close around you.
But that is the specific brand that previous tests examined Tim! You can't simply ignore the fact that this "test" was intended to "check" the previous claims and then ignore the epic fail of the previous claims! That's what you're now trying to do.
In other words, you've got a million and one excuses why your wimpy exotic matter god is a no show in the lab, and not one valid empirical tests of concept.
Ya, but the equipment is far more sensitive that previous detection methods and your exotic matter is supposed to be 5 times more abundant than the dirt in my backyard. It should have show up in such experiments if it was there in these energy ranges. It's not.
Yep. Your exotic matter of the gaps argument is getting a haircut.
Er, no. It immediately went after the only promising area of research to date an found exactly nothing of interest. Now what? More fumbling in the dark eh?
The "disputed nature" looks to be driven not by real scientific concern, but by emotional attachment by the criticizing authors Tim. There's nothing in their criticism that is particularly damning, nor is there any reason to believe that the criticisms have serious merit. In terms of the range being looked at Tim, that's the range where all the action was focused. What did you expect from their first "test"?
That's simply more evidence IMO that you're "reaching" for anything at this point. You don't really know what you're looking for. You don't really know if it's there. You don't really have any evidence that exotic brands of matter exist. All you know is your mass calculations are pitifully useless at determining the total mass of a galaxy. Instead of reexaming your original mass estimation techniques, you're simply going to "have faith" in exotic matter and never question your basic assumptions about the nature of that 'missing mass'.
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/05/19/theres-a-lot-of-dust-out-there-in-the-universe/
http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n0908/21galex/
For all you really know Tim, there is simply more dust and more stars in a given galaxy than you "predicted" with your previous mass estimation techniques. In fact these two articles show that there is evidence to suggest you blew your original mass estimates. Rather than researching the validity of your mass estimation techniques, you ignore the damning evidence entirely, and go on blindly having faith in exotic forms of matter. It's pitiful behavior Tim, along with your villianization routine of EU/PC theory and anyone and everyone that promotes it.
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