Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[Dancing David]

I see we have reached the point where MM has gone to straight political spin and philosophy.

Theories are theories,
if you can't explain rotation curves then you can't counter CDM,
if you can't explain redshift in a coherent fashion then you can't counter the hyothesis of the BBE,

so what was the point MM?

I will go point for point on Arp if you wish but this is not the thread.
I am sure you cane xplain why the BBE is false if youw ant, and we can debate that.

But obviously you have nothing to say about lambda-CDM except you don't like it.

Okay by me, you don't like it. You haven't shown any evidence that contradicts it.

Cool, whatever.

 

[sol invictus]

That's right. Lambda theory is all "postdicted" to fit and it's always wrong.

OK, whatever. You've long since stopped making any sense at all.

It's also a great example of a moving goalpost. When inflation doesn't explain acceleration, throw in dark energy. When those "dark flows" show up that weren't predicted to exist, ignore them. Any actual "predictions" of inflation were all falsified somewhere along the way and new "posdictions" popped up to take their place. The newer ones have "dark energy". The next generation will undoubtedly include "dark flows". Inflation has always been based entirely on 'postdiction", not "prediction".

Inflation has absolutely nothing to do with dark energy.

Anyway, enough of this - you have no idea what you're talking about, you ignore all substantive responses, and you just repeat the same tired rants and childish misunderstandings over and over and over... while contradicting yourself repeatedly. It's really boring.

 

[Tubbythin]

Maybe not your brand of "cosmology" perhaps, but certainly his experiments test core and important tenets of PC/EU theory. You are welcome to treat individual stars as not a part of cosmology if you like, but that really seems pointless since the whole of the cosmos is composed of these stars. Understanding how they function is pretty much critical if we intend to understand how they function together.

Not really. Do we need to understand quarks and electrons to engineer a bridge. No. Do we need to understand how a star works to understand the structure of the Universe on a galactic cluster scale. No.

 

[Michael Mozina]

I see we have reached the point where MM has gone to straight political spin and philosophy.

That is because empirical physics seems to be off the table. Inflation doesn't even exist anymore, so what's left except "philosophy" and 'political spin'? If your theory was based on actual physics, this debate would be over instantly. Since you can't empirically demonstrate your claim, where does that leave us exactly?

Theories are theories,

Your theory is based on 3 separate "hypothetical" particles/thingies, so exactly what makes it a "theory" anyway?

if you can't explain rotation curves then you can't counter CDM,
if you can't explain redshift in a coherent fashion then you can't counter the hyothesis of the BBE,

Ever consider maybe not beginning with the *assumption* any/all of that is even necessary?

so what was the point MM?

The point is that your "theory" requires acts of faith, and one *huge* act of faith as it relates to inflation. Why are you claiming it is "science" if it's predictive value is exactly the same as numerology or astrology?

But obviously you have nothing to say about lambda-CDM except you don't like it.

What exactly is there to "like" about any metaphysical theory/hypothesis? If you were claiming it was a "religion", I wouldn't much care. The fact you claim it's form of science is simply absurd. Science involves "experimentation", not simply a series of postdictions and ad hoc assertions and math formulas.

Okay by me, you don't like it. You haven't shown any evidence that contradicts it.

It's not my job to disprove your theory, it's your job to demonstrate it's not an act of faith. It clearly is an act of faith, one I simply don't share with you.

 

[Tubbythin]

But you get to keep making up inflation and DE?

I didn't make anything up.

No. You have observational evidence for redshift. You have "faith" in Lambda theory. I could just as rightly try to tie all of the same observations back to "God".

Yes, but Goddidit isn't a falsifiable hypothesis. SO that wouldn't be science would it now. Please if you want to talk about God go over to the Religion and Philosophy forum. This is the Science, Maths and Technology forum where people are meant to talk about science, maths and technology (the clues in the name).

Why not? You don't figure that the Catholic Priest that invented Bang theory didn't do that? Suppose I just said "In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth with inflation and dark energy"? How would you demonstrate I am wrong or that this form of God is not "scientific"?

What are you talking about?

Well Duh! That's because it was *POSTDICTED FROM THAT SAME DATA* and you threw in magic *and* the kitchen sink! How could it not match those observations?

No.

So you "postdicted" a brand new and improved model based on "dark enegy" and now I'm supposed to be more impressed because it matches "more predictions". Gah.

No, I didn't do anything. I keep telling you this. You have an awfully short memory

Your "explanation" is actually a non explanation because you didn't "explain" dark energy, you just slapped math to a label.

No.

What you could have done is just let your inflation theory die a natural death.

Its not my theory. Like I said, I wasn't even born when it was devised. You must be delusional if you think someone who wasn't even born came up with the theory.

Instead you took those failed predictions and built new models that were based upon even more forms of metaphysical nonsense. I'm not supposed to "be impressed" by the fact you can not "predict" all these new observations? Come on.

Who the hell are you talking to? Seriously, I've informed you many times its not my theory. If you can't understand that I suggest you get help.

BS. Pick a particle you can actually physically demonstrate here and now.

I couldn't demonstrate a neutron to you here and now. Do they not exist either?

Well, it's not the theory I was handed in school, that's for damn sure.

Science changes, evolves, moves on. That's called scientific progress. "The doubters don't change their mind, they just die out".

It's not just that your theory has no useful application, it is that it has no useful application to any branch of science and never will have any useful application to any branch of science.

Science doesn't have to be useful. It is what it is.

It's only use is to save your otherwise failed theory.

One more time (just in case you've forgotten again):
ITS NOT MY THEORY

I can't use inflation to "predict" anything useful in a controlled experiment, so as far as "empirical science' is concerned, it doesn't exist and for all I know it *never existed*.

From the American heritage dictionary:

1a. Relying on or derived from observation or experiment: empirical results that supported the hypothesis. b. Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment: empirical laws.

Inflation is gone. It is "non existent". It has no physical effect on anything.

Then please give us the correct solution to the flatness problem.

It's also hardly surprising that your metaphysical theory is capable of predicting everything we've observed because it's been postdicted to those observations from the very start.

1) Its not my theory
2)Of course the first observations were postdicted at the start. Thats because the theory didnt come out of thin air. Do you think Newton just thought "ooh I think gravity must obey a 1/r² law and then did some observations note, not lab based experiments) and then went "oh yes, it does. What a marvellous piece of luck". Do you think Gell-Mann just plucked the quark model out of thin air. Or did he post-fit some data?

There was never any real "prediction" that came from Lambda theory like there was with EU/PC theory. Birkeland PREDICTED things based in his experiments that were not even related to his original theory. That's a real "prediction". Lamdba theory has failed every prediction and then it's been modified to fit after the fact.

That is quite simply a lie. You've been shown lots of examples.

If you think inflation isn't religion, it's that that have a problem discriminating between science and religion.

Erm, you keep spouting this garbage but have failed to back it up one iota. Fail.

Inflation is an "act of faith". It has no tangible effect on nature today.

Sure it does. The universe is flat.

It is without a doubt a form of "religion" because it lacks empirical "qualification". It's failed to "predict" anything.

Repeating the same lies doesn't make them true MM.

Pffft. Inflation was "made up" from the very start by a human being who was "stumped". It's a lot harder to swallow the supernatural talents of the inflation powers than to simply accept a bit few anthropromophic qualities related to awareness. At least I know for a fact that awareness exists in nature!

I still have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Yes, I do. Your math isn't evidence that inflation exists in nature. In fact inflation does *not* now exist in nature even if it ever actually did exist in nature. I can therefore safely ignore it as it relates to any branch of "empirical science".

Not at all. We can observe its effect. Like a flat Universe.

I have to have "faith" that it "once existed" based on a series of postdicted formulas that has a failure rate of 100%. Only the most recent one fits anything correctly, except of course it failed to predict those "dark flows", so that one is a failure too.

Repeating the same lies doesn't make them true MM.

A real "prediction" is something "new" that comes from your experiments. Birekland's "predictions" of solar wind, and jets and coronal loops came from his "experiments" that were not even originally related to his theories about aurora. They were "related" only by the flow of current required, and it was the flow of current and his "experimental process" that actually came up with real "predictions" that can be verified using today's technologies. That's an actual "prediction".

Please stick to the topic. This is a cosmology thread.

A string of failed models that failed to "predict" any new observations and were then modified to then fit again is not an actual "prediction", it's a "postdiction". Lambda theory has been a miserable failure at "predicting" anything. That's why we now have 'dark energy' stuffed in there along with inflation.

Repeating the same lies doesn't make them true MM.

 

[Reality Check]

How so?

You did not read Ziggurat post:

And what, pray tell, do you think would falsify it? Well, let's think: he requires a super-hot state for his proposed ambiplasma. But the universe isn't super-hot. Furthermore, we should be awash in cosmic radiation of energies characteristic of proton-antiproton and electron-antielectron annihilation, but we aren't. So yeah, I guess his theory is falsifiable, and provably so because it's already been falsified.

The existence of ambiplasma means there has to be background radiation containing the photons from the annihilation of matter and antimatter.
This is as important a prediction of ambiplasma as the CMB is in BBT.

 

[Michael Mozina]

I didn't make anything up.

Alright. So why "keep the faith"? Why be complicit in the process?

Yes, but Goddidit isn't a falsifiable hypothesis. SO that wouldn't be science would it now.

Inflation did it isn't falsifiable either. It it was, that observed acceleration would have blow it out of the water, as would those "holes" found in the universe and those "dark flows'. Lambda-Gumby theory is the ultimate in unfalsifiable theories because it keeps morphing on command, and inflation doesn't presumably exist anymore so we conveniently can't experiment and find it. The whole thing is purely unfalsifiable and that's my key beef with it.

Please if you want to talk about God go over to the Religion and Philosophy forum.

I'm simply noting that inflation religion sucks, and it's not "science", it is "pseudoscientic (it comes with math!) religious woo", not unlike numerology.

This is the Science, Maths and Technology forum where people are meant to talk about science, maths and technology (the clues in the name).

Math was never the problem for inflation, just as math is not the problem with numerology. It's their "interpretation'" of redshift as a result of inflation/DE that is the problem and the fact they can't demonstrate their woo has any merit whatsoever in a real science "experiment" with actual control mechanisms.

The "changes" you've described are only "changes" to the number of metaphysical fudge factors that have since been squeezed into an otherwise failed formula. The problem with the theory is that it has always been based on "postdiction", so it is always playing catch up. It never actually "predicts" anything useful, nor could it ever predict anything useful today. It's a totally useless hypothesis as it relates to actual "science".

 

[Michael Mozina]

You did not read Ziggurat post:

The existence of ambiplasma means there has to be background radiation containing the photons from the annihilation of matter and antimatter.
This is as important a prediction of ambiplasma as the CMB is in BBT.

It's mostly a handwave of an argument. Didn't you see my link? It would depend entirely on where we find the ambiplasma layers are located, and what sort of process was in play in the double layer. Those emissions from the core of the galaxy may suggest that the galaxy itself has an inner antimatter section and an outer matter section for all I know. I have no idea why you think we should be awash in proton-antiproton radiation, but we do observe matter-antimatter "clouds" in the core of even our own galaxy.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Inflation has absolutely nothing to do with dark energy.

Dark enregy was the handy ad hoc assertion that saved your inflation theory from falsification.

 

[Michael Mozina]

That is quite simply a lie. You've been shown lots of examples.

The part that you fail to recognize is that each and every one of these so called "predictions" was actually a "postdiction" from an uncontrolled observation that the previous model failed to predict correctly. The only reason it "predicts" anything at all "correctly" today is because it's been modified repeatedly over time. It's next hurdle will be dealing with those "dark flows". When they create a new and improved "hairy inflation" model that fits right, they will turn right around and add that to their list of "key predictions" that inflation theory has passed with flying colors! It's pure dogma. It's *never* been accurate, which is why they needed DE to make it work again.

 

[Tubbythin]

The part that you fail to recognize is that each and every one of these so called "predictions" was actually a "postdiction" from an uncontrolled observation that the previous model failed to predict correctly. The only reason it "predicts" anything at all "correctly" today is because it's been modified repeatedly over time. It's next hurdle will be dealing with those "dark flows". When they create a new and improved "hairy inflation" model that fits right, they will turn right around and add that to their list of "key predictions" that inflation theory has passed with flying colors! It's pure dogma. It's *never* been accurate, which is why they needed DE to make it work again.

Once again you illustrate to everybody that you have no idea what you're talking about. Inflation refers to a very very early period in the Universe's history when it rapidly expanded. Dark energy is the explanation of the fact that the expansion is currently accelerating. These things are separated by billions of years.

 

[Reality Check]

Dark enregy was the handy ad hoc assertion that saved your inflation theory from falsification.

Still wrong MM.

Dark energy is an observation not an "ad hoc assertion". Something is causing the universe to expand faster and scientists decided to call it dark energy. They could have called it thingy but I think that was already in use.

BTW: What is "inflation theory"? And why do you think that sol invictus came up with it?

 

[Michael Mozina]

Once again you illustrate to everybody that you have no idea what you're talking about. Inflation refers to a very very early period in the Universe's history when it rapidly expanded. Dark energy is the explanation of the fact that the expansion is currently accelerating. These things are separated by billions of years.

Hoy. More "dogma". Inflation theory (prior to the ad hoc insertion of DE) "predicted" no sort of "acceleration". If anything it "predicted" a deceleration process would occur because the inflation phase was over. When prediction didn't match "observation", instead of falsifying the theory and being done with it, they modified it with yet *another* metaphysical fudge factor! You can't kill this inflation theory. It just won't die. Now we see "dark flows" that are no predicted by inflation and nobody cares! What *exactly* (be specific) actually would falsify inflation today, right now this minute?

 

[Reality Check]

The part that you fail to recognize is that each and every one of these so called "predictions" was actually a "postdiction" from an uncontrolled observation that the previous model failed to predict correctly. The only reason it "predicts" anything at all "correctly" today is because it's been modified repeatedly over time. It's next hurdle will be dealing with those "dark flows". When they create a new and improved "hairy inflation" model that fits right, they will turn right around and add that to their list of "key predictions" that inflation theory has passed with flying colors! It's pure dogma. It's *never* been accurate, which is why they needed DE to make it work again.

In case Tubbythin has not asked this before (I suspect that he has and you ignored it):

Can you give a list of the predictions of the Lambda-CDM model, when they were made and the dates of the observations that all of these predictions postdicted?

Or is this just another unsupported statement from you?

 

[Reality Check]

Hoy. More "dogma". Inflation theory (prior to the ad hoc insertion of DE) "predicted" no sort of "acceleration". If anything it "predicted" a deceleration process would occur because the inflation phase was over. When prediction didn't match "observation", instead of falsifying the theory and being done with it, they modified it with yet *another* metaphysical fudge factor! You can't kill this inflation theory. It just won't die. Now we see "dark flows" that are no predicted by inflation and nobody cares! What *exactly* (be specific) actually would falsify inflation today, right now this minute?

I have to butt in here: Citation please MM.
What published paper or even textbook predicted that the universe would accelerate less after inflation?

ETA: MM, why do you think that the uncontrolled experiment that is the observation of dark flows is evidence for anything? Dark flows have not been duplicated here in a lab. According to your logic they should be ignored!

 

[Perpetual Student]

I am open to the idea of an "objects in motion stay in motion" type of "expansion", just not the concept of "expanding space".

Could you explain further what you mean by that?

 

[Michael Mozina]

Dark energy is an observation not an "ad hoc assertion".

Can you demonstrate that it exists outside of your imagination in a real "experiment"?

Something is causing the universe to expand faster and scientists decided to call it dark energy.

Why didn't you just throw out the theory of inflation instead? What *exactly* is it going to take to falsify inflation?

They could have called it thingy but I think that was already in use.

So they just "made up" a new force in nature instead?

BTW: What is "inflation theory"? And why do you think that sol invictus came up with it?

Guth invented it. The fact I can cite the actual human imagination that invented it should be your first clue. The second clue is that if failed to accurately predict anything since that time.

I would really like to know exactly what it would take to falsify inflation at this point? How about that dark flow? Where it inflation actually "predict" that? Why didn't it predict these structures?

 

[Tubbythin]

Hoy. More "dogma". Inflation theory (prior to the ad hoc insertion of DE) "predicted" no sort of "acceleration". If anything it "predicted" a deceleration process would occur because the inflation phase was over. When prediction didn't match "observation", instead of falsifying the theory and being done with it, they modified it with yet *another* metaphysical fudge factor!

Nope. The Lambda term was in the Friedmann equation back in the 1920's. Observational evidence seemed to suggest it was 0 so people generally ignored it. When observation suggested it wasn't 0, people stop ignoring it.

You can't kill this inflation theory.

Make your mind up. You kept saying it was dead before. The frequency with which you contradict yourself is disturbing.

It just won't die. Now we see "dark flows" that are no predicted by inflation and nobody cares! What *exactly* (be specific) actually would falsify inflation today, right now this minute?

As you've been told we have to be sure dark flows are real first. Check out "pentaquarks" for an excellent example of probable false positives in physics.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Could you explain further what you mean by that?

"Spacetime" can certainly 'expand' as the objects that makeup spacetime "spread out" and coast away from each other over time. There are many people that believe "space expansion" is a complete misnomer, and that the only form of 'expansion' that actually occurs in nature is simple object expansion, not "space expansion". Here's a recent paper on this topic:

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0601171

 

[Ziggurat]

You are welcome to treat individual stars as not a part of cosmology if you like, but that really seems pointless since the whole of the cosmos is composed of these stars.

Well, no. In fact, that's one of the central points of the whole EU concept: that the universe is NOT solely made up of stars, but has lots of large plasma clouds too. If you restrict yourself to stars, EU concepts are trivially wrong, because stars interact with each other pretty much exclusively via gravity. Once again, we find that you contradict yourself.

How hot is the heliosphere?

The heliosphere is not the universe. The universe is not hot, it is cold. Don't believe me? Look at the sky at night. It's dark. Why? Because it's cold.

That depends on where you expect to find the ambiplasma interactions.

According to Alfven, the ambiplasma should surround us. We should be getting bombarded from all directions, and with rather a lot of such gamma rays. We are not. We should be bombarded by visible light from all directions too, since the ambiplasma is supposed to be hot. But again, we do not.

And it depends of course how how one 'interprets' uncontrolled observations.

That's not a response. That's a dodge.

How so?

I already told you. There are specific consequences of Alfven's theory which we can see do not exist. Therefore his theory is both falsifiable and falsified.

I suppose it demonstrates *a* way that you might chose to explain it, but since gravity would certainly make them all roll back toward the sun, it can't work that way.

In other words, rolling balls down a plane is NOT a good way to try to understand the sun. Likewise, there's no reason to expect that coronal loops will tell us anything useful about cosmology. I'm a little surprised that you seem so oblivious to my intent with that comparison.