What kind of science is cosmology

[Zeuzzz]

Currently cosmology has greatly advanced in terms of theory and observation. Some of the parameters of the concordance or LCDM cosmological model are stated with a near absolute precision. But over 96% of the universe is constituted of "matter" of an unknown nature (the term matter is a misnomer from the get go, we can not even be sure it is matter in any sense of how we define it).

So where is cosmologies place amongst the (exact) natural sciences? Due to its epistemic and methodical attributes, as a mathematized historical science, cosmology occupies a vague place.

The universe and nature is awesome, and science is how we explain it. Maths is the code of nature, but not a constituent of it. There's so little we know yet.

Surely, knowledge provided by cosmological modeling cannot be as explicative and secure as knowledge gained by laboratory physics or analytical chemistry.

Knowledge attained by virtue of cosmological inferences based purely on EM data can not rival laboratory physics and other Earth bound natural sciences in its veracity and predictive power.

Agree/Disagree?

Thanks.

 

[MG1962]

But over 96% of the universe is constituted of "matter" of an unknown nature (the term matter is a misnomer from the get go, we can not even be sure it is matter in any sense of how we define it).

Where did you get this information?

 

[Zeuzzz]

Where did you get this information?

Fairly common knowledge, I thought. To account for galactic rotation curve discrepancies that gravity can not explain Dark Matter has to be evoked.

What's 96 Percent of the Universe Made Of? Astronomers Don't Know

NEW YORK — All the stars, planets and galaxies that can be seen today make up just 4 percent of the universe. The other 96 percent is made of stuff astronomers can't see, detect or even comprehend.

 

[MG1962]

Fairly common knowledge, I thought. To account for galactic rotation curve discrepancies that gravity can not explain Dark Matter has to be evoked.

What's 96 Percent of the Universe Made Of? Astronomers Don't Know

I think you will agree that is a very different statement to the one you made. 96% of the universe is missing, does not default to 96% of the universe is matter of an unknown nature. Because the 100% they are talking about is the matter component of the universe, not the total amount of the universe

 

[edd]

Surely, knowledge provided by cosmological modeling cannot be as explicative and secure as knowledge gained by laboratory physics or analytical chemistry.

This seems confused. The modelling provides the information on what the theory predicts that is then compared to data. Laboratory physics and analytical chemistry also have some element of modelling in order to compare them to data.
If you'd said "Surely, knowledge provided by astronomical observation cannot be as explicative..." it might be a better starting point for discussion.

Knowledge attained by virtue of cosmological inferences based purely on EM data can not rival laboratory physics and other Earth bound natural sciences in its veracity and predictive power.

This isn't generally true. Cosmology provides the best current bounds on neutrino masses, better than laboratory physics. It's also pretty much the only way to examine the questions it asks, and if you're not comparing the ability to answer the same questions how do you evaluate it?

Broadly though, my feelings are 'so what if cosmology is not currently as precise as certain other kinds of physics?'

 

[MG1962]

Broadly though, my feelings are 'so what if cosmology is not currently as precise as certain other kinds of physics?'

That can also be an artifact that the observational elements are producing data at a higher rate than the theoretical astrophysics can process it

 

[quarky]

We may be on the collective verge of finally knowing how much we don't know.

 

[MG1962]

We may be on the collective verge of finally knowing how much we don't know.

QFT

 

[Zeuzzz]

We may be on the collective verge of finally knowing how much we don't know.

A lot of people are going to get annoyed when their pet theories start to be challenged. Like very annoyed, either when new theories start to explain things better in a totally different way, or their theory is shown to be predicted on faulty assumptions and axioms, as beautifully internally self consistent an elegant as it may be.

The proper scientists are going to be fascinated and excited, however.

For a science as broad and far reaching, philosophically and epidemically, in terms of its profundity in nature to us and the universe as a whole, different approaches to cosmology and brand new theories based on epistemically different approaches need to be created, and the few that exist need to be given more consideration, funding and recognition than they are now.

http://cosmologystatement.org/
An Open Letter to the Scientific Community
cosmologystatement.org
(Published in New Scientist, May 22, 2004)

 

[Craig B]

We may be on the collective verge of finally knowing how much we don't know.

I think that's very optimistic. Let us examine the wisdom of a great thinker.

[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say there are things that, we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know, we don't know.—United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld

These unknown unknowns will still exist, and their extent will still be an unknown, albeit a known unknown.

 

[Zeuzzz]

These unknown unknowns will still exist, and their extent will still be an unknown, albeit a known unknown.

I really hope you quoted Donald Rumsfeld there as a joke in some way, because when you realise the context in which he said that he was basically trying to confuse people by using multitudes of double negatives and logically unsupportable arguments to cover the fact hundreds of thousands of people were likely just about to be killed based on made up things. Things that were unknown.

Back on topic, cosmology is not a science. It's a misapplication of precise sciences which gives rise to what people erroneously assume is a "precise cosmology".

EDIT: Just read the 'great thinker' bit. Obviously was a joke, though your reason for bringing it up is still a total mystery to me.

 

[knowthecosmos]

Back on topic, cosmology is not a science. It's a misapplication of precise sciences which gives rise to what people erroneously assume is a "precise cosmology".

I personally don't know of any professional scientists who view cosmology in "precise" terms. Cosmology is but our understanding of the fundamental structure and evolution of the universe based on our observation.

Many people have very different interpretation of what the "true" nature of the universe is, but that's where the scientific method comes in.

Science-based Cosmology is getting better with age. The more data that is acquired and processed, the more we're able to understand the universe.

To imply that the use of the word Cosmology is a "misapplication of precise sciences" seems to be quite foolhardy, in my opinion. It seems like you're inferring that astrophysicists and astronomers are just making arbitrary statements about the universe which they hope to be true. That's not the case.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Science-based Cosmology is getting better with age. The more data that is acquired and processed, the more we're able to understand the universe.

Its accruing larger and larger fudge factors ontop of ever more abstract mathematical hypostatizations to the detriment of other interpretations of the data that could prove just as fruitful and explanatory than the one single theory and approach that has become the only 'correct' way to interpret the data.

 

[edd]

For a science as broad and far reaching, philosophically and epidemically, in terms of its profundity in nature to us and the universe as a whole, different approaches to cosmology and brand new theories based on epistemically different approaches need to be created, and the few that exist need to be given more consideration, funding and recognition than they are now.

http://cosmologystatement.org/
An Open Letter to the Scientific Community
cosmologystatement.org
(Published in New Scientist, May 22, 2004)

This just isn't true. Plenty of pretty wacky ideas get researched in theoretical cosmology. The unfortunate fact for some who won't let go of their favourite ideas though is that those ideas are clearly no longer in the running. Plasma cosmology and steady state ideas just can't even make remotely competitive predictions anymore.

In addition what you refer to as 'fudge factors' in a later post are not getting larger and larger - they're getting ever better constrained and the multiple theoretical ideas we currently have (none of which are tremendously satisfactory I'll grant you - but as said theoreticians are trying to come up with better ideas) are getting gradually narrowed down by the accumulating evidence.

 

[DazzaD]

Its accruing larger and larger fudge factors ontop of ever more abstract mathematical hypostatizations to the detriment of other interpretations of the data that could prove just as fruitful and explanatory than the one single theory and approach that has become the only 'correct' way to interpret the data.

When I was doing cosmology research during my PhD the shelves in the library were stacked full of journals that had a tremendous variation of theories from the mainstream to the truly radical, over the course of over 50 years...

The simple fact is that mainstream just means the ones that are working the best.. over than that there is real preference for the explanations put forward...just which ones work the best.

In my short time doing that research the mainline on several issues changed at least 4 times...

Better and better data was being collected at an ever increasing rate as new technology, engineering and computing power was being ramped up massively...

 

[Farsight]

Cosmology is metaphysics. See wikipedia:

"A person who studies metaphysics is called a metaphysicist[4] or a metaphysician.[5] The metaphysician attempts to clarify the fundamental notions by which people understand the world, e.g., existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility. A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into the basic categories of being and how they relate to each other. Another central branch of metaphysics is cosmology, the study of the totality of all phenomena within the universe".

 

[edd]

I don't think that's correct. Some parts of what you might consider cosmology are metaphysics, but not all cosmology is metaphysics.

That claim incidentally could be backed up by following the first 'cosmology' link in the wikipedia article you give.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Currently cosmology has greatly advanced in terms of theory and observation. Some of the parameters of the concordance or LCDM cosmological model are stated with a near absolute precision. But over 96% of the universe is constituted of "matter" of an unknown nature (the term matter is a misnomer from the get go, we can not even be sure it is matter in any sense of how we define it).

So where is cosmologies place amongst the (exact) natural sciences? Due to its epistemic and methodical attributes, as a mathematized historical science, cosmology occupies a vague place.

The universe and nature is awesome, and science is how we explain it. Maths is the code of nature, but not a constituent of it. There's so little we know yet.

Surely, knowledge provided by cosmological modeling cannot be as explicative and secure as knowledge gained by laboratory physics or analytical chemistry.

Knowledge attained by virtue of cosmological inferences based purely on EM data can not rival laboratory physics and other Earth bound natural sciences in its veracity and predictive power.

Agree/Disagree?

Thanks.

A similar argument could be made about the evolution of life.
What's the point? Cosmology is our best attempt to understand the nature of the universe and its origins using all of our accumulated scientific knowledge. There is no area of science that is not subject to revision as new information is attained; that's part of what what defines science. Because of its remoteness and vastness in both space and time, the universe is a unique challenge for the scientific method, so from time to time we see failed theories (Hoyle's steady state hypothesis, etc.) and much remains unknown. But cosmology is unambiguously a science, since its theories and speculations are subject to all the methods and scrutiny that we apply to all science.

 

[MG1962]

Its accruing larger and larger fudge factors ontop of ever more abstract mathematical hypostatizations to the detriment of other interpretations of the data that could prove just as fruitful and explanatory than the one single theory and approach that has become the only 'correct' way to interpret the data.

Wrong. In 1998 some research was released that turned a lot of cosmology and how we thought the universe worked on its head

In 2011 that research team won a noble prize

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_universe

According to your position that could not happen. Remember also people are still trying to figure out what those observations really mean. A lot of the talk about dark energy, matter and flow is basically trying to nail jello to a fence. Keep throwing ideas and see what eventually sticks

 

[Zeuzzz]

Lack of evidence for your personal thesis of cosmology is noted.

Theory as described by BBT proponents as they see it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cosmology

Theory as described by one of the main proponents: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plasma_cosmology&oldid=88919194

Once again im the one thats actually linked to material of substance first, BBT advocates rarely state their case first except for commenting on the incorrectness of the alternate theory

*Queues reality checks bullet point list arguing against this, with no actual references to the data in support of BBT*

 

[sol invictus]

Cosmology is metaphysics. See wikipedia:

"A person who studies metaphysics is called a metaphysicist[4] or a metaphysician.[5] The metaphysician attempts to clarify the fundamental notions by which people understand the world, e.g., existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility. A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into the basic categories of being and how they relate to each other. Another central branch of metaphysics is cosmology, the study of the totality of all phenomena within the universe".

If you would actually click on the link to cosmology in that passage, you'd see that it leads to metaphysical cosmology (the philosophical sub-discipline), not physical cosmology (the sub-discipline of astrophysics).

 

[ben m]

A lot of people are going to get annoyed when their pet theories start to be challenged. Like very annoyed, either when new theories start to explain things better in a totally different way, or their theory is shown to be predicted on faulty assumptions and axioms, as beautifully internally self consistent an elegant as it may be.

"When"? A bit presumptuous, no? Try "if".

I know you *want* LCDM to fail. I know you *expect* LCDM to fail. You have no evidence that LCDM has failed, or is going to fail, or has a chance of failing.

I want things, too. "A lot of oil companies are going to be annoyed when someone invents a 50%-efficient solar cell that costs $10/m^2." "A lot of Republicans are going to be annoyed when 200 high-tech companies pull out of North Carolina and move to Massachusetts when their employees demand marriage equality". "A lot of libertarians are going to be annoyed when their libertarian seasteading utopia overflows with raw sewage due to market failures in the provision of public goods." You, personally, want LCDM to fail in a way that maximizes I-told-you-so potential for crackpots? Good for you. Wanting doesn't make it so.

 

[Zeuzzz]

The funny thing is, that you have no problem accepting the lacks and flaws of your favored "Big Bang" model (which if you would post, for example, the exact attributes of the CMB as predicted by the Big Bang and then how this was subsequently proved, I could reply to it, and find conflicts of data)

There always comes a point where BBT advocates end up saying things like "we simply dont know yet" when new unexpected data emerges, but when an aposing, reasonably well documented theory , gives you the same "we simply dont know yet", it suddently makes the theory fall apart?

Granted, you are good at describing lacks and missings in the PC model, yet while blindly accepting the shortcomings and lacks in the model you see fit.

 

[ben m]

The funny thing is, that you have no problem accepting the lacks and flaws of your favored "Big Bang" model (which if you would post, for example, the exact attributes of the CMB as predicted by the Big Bang and then how this was subsequently proved, I could reply to it, and find conflicts of data)

I don't suppose you tried, say, the web page of WMAP, the satellite that's provided a big chunk of this data? Here's a list of their papers.

http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/map/current/map_bibliography.cfm

Note the *prelaunch* papers (try Zaldarriaga, Spergel and Seljak) which shows how different cosmological models *would* give different CMB spectra. Note that the high-order CMB peaks predicted had not yet been observed at all. Note that---a year prior to Riess and Perlmutter---Zaldarriaga already had "dark energy" as one of the sub-hypotheses WMAP would help to test.

Then note the *postlaunch* papers, which see all of those peaks, see the polarization, etc. There are dozens of them, read any one you like.

BAO? Predicted by Eisenstein, Silk, Tegmark. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1998ApJ...504L..57E to be observable, and for its location to depend on several cosmological parameters. Observed in 2005, at the location that agreed with WMAP's parameters.

Zeuzzz, you can find any of these things by (say) clicking through references at the bottom of Wikipedia articles. It sounds like you've never done that before, instead choosing the comfortable assumption that everyone outside of EU/PC is a lying moron. Would you like to continue assuming that for the rest of my list (LSS, CMBPol, Ly-A, bullet cluster, Sunyaev-Zeldovich, Gunn-Peterson, etc....), or would you like to do your own Freshman-level lit search and learn the truth?

 

[Andy_Ross]

The funny thing is, that you have no problem accepting the lacks and flaws of your favored "Big Bang" model (which if you would post, for example, the exact attributes of the CMB as predicted by the Big Bang and then how this was subsequently proved, I could reply to it, and find conflicts of data)

You are the one making the claim, you need to support the claim.

Why shouls other post what is already Mainstream and common knowledge?

Burden of Proof and all that.

 

[ben m]

The complete lack of answers to my questions, requesting the main specific data used to prove the BBT based on its predictive power as it stands to date speaks volumes.

This is an educational forum. Not a forum where someone who asks for relevant data in support of a theory is just told they don't understand data that (seemingly) doesn't even exist, else it would have been posted by now.

If you think "educational site" means "I can make experts type whatever I ask for as many times as I want", you're wrong.

Everything you're asking for HAS been posted umpteen times by umpteen people, including me, in an *attempt* to educate the same four EU/PC supporters, exactly zero of whom seem to have learned anything from it.

Also, while you're sitting here saying "if it isn't explained to me on JREF, the data doesn't exist", there's an entire world out there where the data that "doesn't exist" just won its third Nobel prize, was published its gazillionth paper and received its sphmthillionth citations, spent tens of millions of dollars on outreach, sold tens of millions of books, and is routine taught to thousands of undergrads every year, nowadays teaching them about COBE data that was collected before they were born.

But never mind all that! Clearly, the fact that your *personal* demand for data received only N responses, instead of N+1, means that the data must not exist at all.

 

[Perpetual Student]

The complete lack of answers to my questions, requesting the main specific data used to prove the BBT based on its predictive power as it stands to date speaks volumes.

This is an educational forum. Not a forum where someone who asks for relevant data in support of a theory is just told they don't understand data that (seemingly) doesn't even exist, else it would have been posted by now.

This is hilarious.

Expecting a meaningful response to a broadside blast at all of cosmology is just plain silly. Perhaps if you chose one aspect to inquire about (like dark matter or the CMB), you might have the beginning of a dialog. But that would require you to make a genuine attempt to discuss and understand the evidence, the mathematics and the logic involved. With that settled, you could move on to some other aspect of cosmology.

 

[Zeuzzz]

But never mind all that! Clearly, the fact that your *personal* demand for data received only N responses, instead of N+1, means that the data must not exist at all.

Its not that ben, its more the fact that if I choose specifics of course you will find a paper that says its strong proof for the Big Bang. Whereas I will likely be able to find one that shows the exact same data is evidence against it.

Intergalactic Radio Absorption and the COBE Data,
Astrophysics and Space Science, 227: 61-81, 1995.
The Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System
Keywords: Plasma Cosmology, Cosmic Microwave Background, COBE
DOI: 10.1007/BF00678067
Read The Full Text, if you would be so kind: http://www.photonmatrix.com/pdf/Intergalactic Radio Absorption And The COBE Data.pdf

The COBE data on cosmic Background radiation (CBR) isotropy and spectrum are generally considered to be explicable only in the context of the Big Bang theory and to be confirmation of that theory. However, this data can also be explained by an alternative, non-Big Bang model which hypothesizes an intergalactic radio-absorbing and scattering medium. A simple, inhomogenous model of such an absorbing medium can reproduce both the isotropy and spectrum of the CBR within the limits observed by COBE, and in fact gives a better to fit to the spectrum observations than does a pure blackbody. Such a model does not contradict any other observations, such as the existence of distant radio sources.

If I chose say the fidelity of the CMB spectrum to that of a black body, and the low level of anisotropies that were found, or the fact that its been shown that spiral morphology galaxies, like the Milky Way, line up in a filamentary type formation like pearls on a necklace, with the spin axes aligned with the filaments that emanate from them [1][2] (as Alfven originally prediced about large scale non gravitational filamentary structure), or the plethora of conflicting data that contradicts the main assumption of BBT of a largely homogeneous universe that is now shown to be more filamentary on the large scale; yes, I'm sure you can find models that explain that within the BBT framework as the vast majority of cosmologists are so fixed in this mindset they dont see it as falsifying data thats testing the theory just interesting data that we need to explain in the framework we already know is true, by adding new theories on top of already tenuously predicated hypothesis and exotic dark matter fudge factors. But these observational facts were not predicted by BBT and many are constantly unexplained and in conflict, and the models are continually tweaked to fit in with the framework without reconsidering the whole cosmological approach as a whole as based on erroneous assumptions from the start.

[1]Robert Adler (1 May 2006). "Galaxies like necklace beads". Astronomy. http://www.astronomy.com/en/News-Observing/News/2006/05/Galaxies like necklace beads.aspx

[2] Ignacio Trujillo, Conrado Carretero, Santiago G. Patiri (2006). "Detection of the effect of cosmological large-scale structure on the orientation of galaxies". Astrophys.J.Letters. arXiv:astro-ph/0511680v2. DOI:10.1086/503548.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Science adjusts its views based on whats observed,
Faith is the denial of observation as falsifying, so that faith can be preserved.

If I was any good at poetry I'd try to add another three lines to that to make an actually good limerick. Two lines of rhyme is about my limit of poetic aptitude.

But I think the point stands on its own without extraneous literacy exposition.

 

[edd]

COBE is just a smidgen out of date, Zeuzzz.

 

[Zeuzzz]

COBE is just a smidgen out of date, Zeuzzz.

As is the funding and support for the people developing the theories I linked to before.

Even though based on the amazingly limited (pretty much non existant) funding they have got they have actually had more experimental sucess with experimental ideas derived from plasma cosmology based ideas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cosmology#Step_3_of_the_cosmic_triple_jump:_galaxies_and_beyond

Complementing and in agreement with these simulation studies by Peratt was an analytical model of a plasma quasar mechanism by Lerner.[38] This contradicts the standard model of quasars as being powered by supermassive black holes which are illuminated by radiation from the luminous matter they are accreting. A device based on this mechanism to concentrate power is called a dense plasma focus (DPF) device and is potentially useful for controlled nuclear fusion on Earth. Lerner has gone on to research these devices and in March 2012 his team announced their DPF device had achieved temperatures of 1.8 billion degrees, beating the old record of 1.1 billion that had survived since 1978.[39][40]

[38]^ E.J. Lerner (1986). "Magnetic Self‑Compression in Laboratory Plasma, Quasars and Radio Galaxies". Laser and Particle Beams 4 part 2: 193‑222.
[39]^ Halper, Mark (March 28, 2012). "Fusion breakthrough". Smart PLanet. Retrieved 1 April 2012.
[40]^ Eric J. Lerner, S. Krupakar Murali, Derek Shannon, Aaron M. Blake, and Fred Van Roessel (23 March 2012). "Fusion reactions from >150 keV ions in a dense plasma focus plasmoid". Phys. Plasmas 19 (3). Retrieved 17 July 2012.

So much for the LHCs real world practical applications and other BBT based experiments that have been so experimentally unfruitful despite getting maybe 10⁷? times as much funding, and have produced nothing much of practical use apart from grappling in the dark to try to find evidence for Higgs Bosons and other exotic mathematically abstract things that are needed to tie the theories into a nice mathematically elegant knot, which have no real world practical use past resolving a few incomplete theories and equations that trouble some scientists.

(That was a gross simplification, but I think you get my point)

 

[Dancing David]

Lack of actual main data in support of BBT by people claiming I'm dismissing it from ignorance noted.

the cosmological red shift

Lack of original BBT predictions vs modern data noted.

Lack of future predictions based on BBT noted.

Lack of variation in first word of choice for every sentence in this post also noted.

The BBT is a descriptive post hoc model, so far, and you and BAC presented many, there are NO valid contenders for the redshift other than cosmological expansion.

 

[Ziggurat]

Science adjusts its views based on whats observed,
Faith is the denial of observation as falsifying, so that faith can be preserved.

Which is precisely why most scientists reject Alfven's plasma cosmos model: it doesn't fit observations. Yet you cling to it, denying those falsifications out of faith.

But I think the point stands on its own without extraneous literacy exposition.

Just not in the way you think it does.

You see, there really are legitimate scientific attempts to explore alternatives to the standard cosmological model. But plasma cosmology just isn't one of them, at least not anymore. One could argue that it was scientific once upon a time. But it has since been falsified, and those who still cling to it do so out of delusion.

If you want to get rid of dark matter, look elsewhere. For example, here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.1059
But note what's required in order to achieve it: something that replaces general relativity. But that won't change the CMB, which still disproves plasma cosmology.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Its not that ben, its more the fact that if I choose specifics of course you will find a paper that says its strong proof for the Big Bang. Whereas I will likely be able to find one that shows the exact same data is evidence against it.

Given your track record, here, I for one seriously doubt that.

But I'm not closed-minded; go for it!

Intergalactic Radio Absorption and the COBE Data,
Astrophysics and Space Science, 227: 61-81, 1995.
The Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System
Keywords: Plasma Cosmology, Cosmic Microwave Background, COBE
DOI: 10.1007/BF00678067
Read The Full Text, if you would be so kind: http://www.photonmatrix.com/pdf/Intergalactic Radio Absorption And The COBE Data.pdf

Nice!

As far as I could tell, doing the usual searches, Lerner did not follow this paper up, with analyses of other, later, CMBR observations (e.g. WMAP, ACBAR). Do you know of any such analyses?

If I chose say the fidelity of the CMB spectrum to that of a black body, and the low level of anisotropies that were found,

Just the Lerner paper (and ones it cites)? Or is there anything else?

or the fact that its been shown that spiral morphology galaxies, like the Milky Way, line up in a filamentary type formation like pearls on a necklace, with the spin axes aligned with the filaments that emanate from them [1][2]

[1]Robert Adler (1 May 2006). "Galaxies like necklace beads". Astronomy. http://www.astronomy.com/en/News-Observing/News/2006/05/Galaxies like necklace beads.aspx

[2] Ignacio Trujillo, Conrado Carretero, Santiago G. Patiri (2006). "Detection of the effect of cosmological large-scale structure on the orientation of galaxies". Astrophys.J.Letters. arXiv:astro-ph/0511680v2. DOI:10.1086/503548.

The Trujillo et al. paper has 46 cites, according to ADS. A quick skim of those suggests that your simplified summary is somewhat inaccurate (in terms of subsequent analyses of observations). Environment certainly seems to have an effect; however, it's apparently not so simple as "the spin axes aligned with the filaments that emanate from them".

(as Alfven originally prediced about large scale non gravitational filamentary structure)

He did? Do you have a reference?

, or the plethora of conflicting data that contradicts the main assumption of BBT of a largely homogeneous universe that is now shown to be more filamentary on the large scale;

I'm not sure what you're referring to, but my reading of the relevant literature suggests that the match between the observed large-scale structure and theoretical models is astonishingly good (e.g. Millennium, Bolshoi, etc simulations). If anything, it's the small-scales where things seem to be a bit skew-if (e.g. a Milky Way-like galaxy would rarely have two satellites like the LMC and SMC).

yes, I'm sure you can find models that explain that within the BBT framework as the vast majority of cosmologists are so fixed in this mindset they dont see it as falsifying data thats testing the theory just interesting data that we need to explain in the framework we already know is true, by adding new theories on top of already tenuously predicated hypothesis and exotic dark matter fudge factors.

Or, if I may paraphrase, to a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

May I suggest that you really don't have as good an understanding of what "the vast majority of cosmologists" think to warrant your aspersions? And that, if you actually knew a representative sample, you'd realize how grotesque your characterization is?

But these observational facts were not predicted by BBT

This is a joke, right?

and many are constantly unexplained and in conflict,

I'll await specifics, from you, before raining on this particular parade of yours.

and the models are continually tweaked to fit in with the framework without reconsidering the whole cosmological approach as a whole as based on erroneous assumptions from the start.

If you really, truly think this, why are you spending time posting, here in JREF?

Surely the effort spent is effort that could be more productively used in collaborating with Lerner (to take one example), to write the killer paper that ushers in the new paradigm? You know, the one in which you start with non-erroneous assumptions, use a different cosmological approach, develop a brand new set of models, and show that they are fully consistent with the totality of relevant observations? Oh, and for bonus points (and what earns you a free, return first-class airfare to Stockholm), concrete, testable hypotheses that pass muster, observationally?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

As is the funding and support for the people developing the theories I linked to before.

Oh Z baby, you really have a knack of coming up with utter nonsense, don't you?

What do you need - truly, really, actually need - to develop these theories?

A reliable, fast internet connection; a decent PC (or two, one that runs some version of Linux); some data analysis software (most of it is available, free); time. A printer, a comfortable room - chair, desk, etc. And not much else.

Sure, it's nice to be paid to do such work, but if you're sufficiently committed, I've no doubt you can find a way to earn enough money to keep you in tea and biscuits (after all, hundreds of physics cranks and crackpots do, so why not you?)

Even though based on the amazingly limited (pretty much non existant) funding they have got they have actually had more experimental sucess with experimental ideas derived from plasma cosmology based ideas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cosmology#Step_3_of_the_cosmic_triple_jump:_galaxies_and_beyond


[38]^ E.J. Lerner (1986). "Magnetic Self‑Compression in Laboratory Plasma, Quasars and Radio Galaxies". Laser and Particle Beams 4 part 2: 193‑222.
[39]^ Halper, Mark (March 28, 2012). "Fusion breakthrough". Smart PLanet. Retrieved 1 April 2012.
[40]^ Eric J. Lerner, S. Krupakar Murali, Derek Shannon, Aaron M. Blake, and Fred Van Roessel (23 March 2012). "Fusion reactions from >150 keV ions in a dense plasma focus plasmoid". Phys. Plasmas 19 (3). Retrieved 17 July 2012.

This is another of your strange jokes, right?

If not, how is it relevant?

So much for the LHCs real world practical applications and other BBT based experiments that have been so experimentally unfruitful despite getting maybe 10⁷? times as much funding, and have produced nothing much of practical use apart from grappling in the dark to try to find evidence for Higgs Bosons and other exotic mathematically abstract things that are needed to tie the theories into a nice mathematically elegant knot, which have no real world practical use past resolving a few incomplete theories and equations that trouble some scientists.

(That was a gross simplification, but I think you get my point)

No, I don't get your point.

Would you care to try and explain it, more simply?

 

[ben m]

So, Eric Lerner thinks the CMB photons come from local plasma?

Here's what it looks like when a real astronomer wonders if CMB photons are affected by a local plasma. You get a paper like Hogan (ApJ 398, L77, 1992) proposing a non-cosmological explanation, involving (yes) plasma. This paper gets cited by other papers which work out more of the details and comparing them to data. This gets resolved within a year or so, the result being that Hogan's hypothesis was not correct. Note that Hogan was not "cast out of the academy", vilified, etc. He in fact won the Gruber prize, was department chair at U. Washington, and generally continues to be an important cosmologist.

Let's compare! Eric Lerner proposes a plasma model, fits small part of the 1992 dataset. Sits around. Sits around some more. Ignores 2004 data. Ignores 2007 data. Complains about how astronomers are incompetent and/or biased. Calls for paradigm shift.

Craig Hogan proposes a plasma model. Works on it. Works on it more. Within a year or two it's obvious that his model disagrees with details of existing data. Discards it and does something else. The "something else" includes making predictions for the 2004 WMAP dataset. The data agree with the predictions.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

The complete lack of answers to my questions, requesting the main specific data used to prove the BBT based on its predictive power as it stands to date speaks volumes.

This is an educational forum. Not a forum where someone who asks for relevant data in support of a theory is just told they don't understand data that (seemingly) doesn't even exist, else it would have been posted by now.

This is hilarious.

Why is it hilarious for us to try to ignore someone who not only ignores but also denies the scientific evidence that has already been cited in numerous threads, for the apparent purpose of starting yet another redundant thread that bemoans the lack of funding for investigation of alternative hypotheses that have already been investigated and been found wanting?

Here's a constructive suggestion. Let's stipulate that the following book contains a fair summary of mainstream cosmology "as of 200n, where n is an integer that varies from 1 to 7 through different parts of the book."

Steven Weinberg. Cosmology. Oxford University Press, 2008.​

That book contains over 500 pages (not counting the appendices), with numerous references to empirical research that has been used to test the predictive power of mainstream cosmology.

We know Farsight would get lost at page 3, because he said so himself. (The first part of Weinberg's equation (1.1.9) is Einstein's equation (3) with Weinberg's sign convention.)

If we assume Zeuzzz is more capable than Farsight when it comes to reading about relativity and cosmology, then it would seem to be Zeuzzz's responsibility to tell us why he has been dismissing the 500+ pages of science in Weinberg's book. That would be a more productive way to proceed than for us to list its table of contents.

http://cosmologystatement.org/
An Open Letter to the Scientific Community
cosmologystatement.org
(Published in New Scientist, May 22, 2004)

We've already had a lot of fun with that hilarious argument from authority. Repeating your failed argument of almost two years ago suggests you still haven't come up with a better argument.

 

[Tubbythin]

http://cosmologystatement.org/
An Open Letter to the Scientific Community
cosmologystatement.org
(Published in New Scientist, May 22, 2004)

What??? Again? Has this not been torn to shreds enough times on here?

 

[Tim Thompson]

Lerner & CMB & LCDM Cosmology

Surely, knowledge provided by cosmological modeling cannot be as explicative and secure as knowledge gained by laboratory physics or analytical chemistry.

I disagree with this assumption. In fact, surely the opposite must be true; astronomical observations & the interpretation thereof, in the context of physical cosmology, will produce knowledge that is impossible to gain through any laboratory experiment. This is true because astronomical observations are able to sample spatial & temporal scales that are not possible through any laboratory experiment. So, it is actually not possible to argue that the knowledge thus obtained is "less secure" than laboratory experience, since there never can be laboratory experience to compare with.

Intergalactic Radio Absorption and the COBE Data,
Astrophysics and Space Science, 227: 61-81, 1995.

I don't trust Lerner's analysis. Lerner assumes that there must be an IR-radio correlation that is independent of redshift, but there is no reason to assume that is true, while there is reason to assume it is not true (e.g., Lacki & Thompson, 2010 {not me & no relation that I know of }). Also note that in his analysis of the absorption of the intergalactic medium, I did not see any reference to inverse Compton scattering of all those high energy electrons off of their own synchrotron photons. Lerner assumes there will be a thermal SED because of absorption, but never addresses Compton & Inverse Compton scattering that would deform the thermal shape (all known sources of both are removed in foreground masking for both COBE & WMAP). I also see no reference to polarization; specific polarization patterns are predicted by LCDM (e.g., Alizadeh & Hirata, 2012), which is why Planck measures polarization. I don't see that Lerner has made a strong argument.

Furthermore, I note that Lerner says in his own paper, "The present paper is intended to give a preliminary answer to these questions" (page 62), regarding whether or not the COBE observations can be explained by plasma filament radio absorption. In my book, "preliminary" means exactly what it says, and a preliminary paper should only be referenced as a preliminary argument against LCDM cosmology, and not a final argument. I am not encouraged to put much faith in Lerner, partly for the objections I raised above, and partly because Lerner himself is evidently equally unimpressed with his own arguments, since it seems he never tried to turn his preliminary study into a non-preliminary study. There is now a wealth of CMB data far beyond COBE, with far higher spatial resolution and precision, and Planck will produce even higher resolution data, including polarization, probably to be released next year.

Why should I put faith into an argument, when the very same author of that argument does not indicated to me by his literary output that he has faith in it himself?

I am on the road & traveling to places with poor internet service, so look for me to be inconsistently available for a week or so.

 

[Zeuzzz]

So, Eric Lerner thinks the CMB photons come from local plasma?

Here's what it looks like when a real astronomer wonders if CMB photons are affected by a local plasma. You get a paper like Hogan (ApJ 398, L77, 1992) proposing a non-cosmological explanation, involving (yes) plasma. This paper gets cited by other papers which work out more of the details and comparing them to data. This gets resolved within a year or so, the result being that Hogan's hypothesis was not correct. Note that Hogan was not "cast out of the academy", vilified, etc. He in fact won the Gruber prize, was department chair at U. Washington, and generally continues to be an important cosmologist.

Let's compare! Eric Lerner proposes a plasma model, fits small part of the 1992 dataset. Sits around. Sits around some more. Ignores 2004 data. Ignores 2007 data. Complains about how astronomers are incompetent and/or biased. Calls for paradigm shift.

Craig Hogan proposes a plasma model. Works on it. Works on it more. Within a year or two it's obvious that his model disagrees with details of existing data. Discards it and does something else. The "something else" includes making predictions for the 2004 WMAP dataset. The data agree with the predictions.

And your gross misrepresentation of Lerner is based on what? An argument from ignorance? Or the fact that you just don't like the guy? Is it his haircut, or his theories, I wonder.

Lets try to clear this up at least before im done with this thread and forum.

"Eric Lerner proposes a plasma model, fits small part of the 1992 dataset. Sits around. Sits around some more. Ignores 2004 data. Ignores 2007 data."


He proposes the model in 1995. It was subsequently peer reviewed, referenced by many people, just as the paper you quoted from 1992 was (somehow you claimed it it superior by virtue of the nature of the person writing it being a 'real astronomer', not the content).

To paraphrase wikipedia, Mr Lerner was not sitting around, this gives a more concise timeline of his activities than your strange misrepresentation.

Lerner received a BA in physics from Columbia University[4] and started as a graduate student in physics at the University of Maryland, but left after a year due, he said, to his dissatisfaction with the mathematical rather than experimental approach there.[5][6] He then pursued a career in popular science writing.
In 1984, he began studying plasma phenomena and laboratory fusion devices, performing experimental work on a machine called a dense plasma focus (DPF). Lerner received funding from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1994 and 2001 to explore whether the dense plasma focus could be an effective ion thruster to propel spacecraft.[7][8] He believes that a dense plasma focus can also be used to produce useful aneutronic fusion energy.[9][10] Lerner explained his "Focus Fusion" approach in a 2007 Google Tech Talk.[11] On November 14, 2008, Lerner received funding for continued research, to test the scientific feasibility of Focus Fusion.[12] On October 15, 2009, the DPF device "Focus Fusion-1" achieved its first pinch.[13] On January 28th, 2011, LPP published initial results including experimental shots with considerably higher fusion yields than the historical DPF trend.[14] In March, 2012, the company announced that it had achieved temperatures of 1.8 billion degrees, beating the old record of 1.1 billion that had survived since 1978. [15]
Lerner is a critic of the Big Bang model and advocates an infinitely old Universe.[16]
Lerner is also an active general science writer, estimating that he has had about 600 articles published.[3] He has received journalism awards between 1984 and 1993 from the Aviation Space Writers Association. In 2006 he was a Visiting Scientist at the European Southern Observatory in Chile.[17]

Complementing and in agreement with these simulation studies by Peratt was an analytical model of a plasma quasar mechanism by Lerner.[38] This contradicts the standard model of quasars as being powered by supermassive black holes which are illuminated by radiation from the luminous matter they are accreting. A device based on this mechanism to concentrate power is called a dense plasma focus (DPF) device and is potentially useful for controlled nuclear fusion on Earth. Lerner has gone on to research these devices and in March 2012 his team announced their DPF device had achieved temperatures of 1.8 billion degrees, beating the old record of 1.1 billion that had survived since 1978.[39][40]

Been quite a busy chappy hasn't he? And luckily, its the great minds like this that have interdisciplinary knowledge and out of the box thinking, that tend to turn out some of the best scientists overall. I have never sensed any sort of crackpot or denial of evidence from Lerner, and not a smidge of subject specific myopia. Even if some people misconstrue his work to such an extent.



The only post worth replying to so far, thats not been full of either demeaning emotive pejoratives or arguments from ignorance, has been Tims above. Thanks tim. (oh and quarkies was spot on, but that goes with out saying). But I need more time, and I've got a beach and barbecue to attend to.

But theres a chance that I'll just be swamped with the same type of emotive, arrogant, condescending, replies from the same people that filled this thread before. It needs some sort of moderation.

And ben, if you want to actually learn a few things about Lerner, as you seemed so wrong before in your representation, maybe watching his 65 minute google tek talk would be a good idea?



I'm very happy for him his hard work has recently payed off in march 2012, despite the ridicule he has had to endure along the way for many of his controversial theories.

I'm done.