Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[DeiRenDopa]

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

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

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

That is another viable candidate to explain galactic rotational patterns.

[...]

Wow, two gems in the space of a mere few inflations, er, I mean minutes!

MM, the self-professed empiricist, has "no particular beef with neutrino based "dark matter" theories, or MACHO theories"?!?!

A: Oh look, how shiny and yellow that ingot of gold is!

B: Er, it might look shiny and yellow, but it can't be gold; for one thing its density is quite wrong, and for another its electrical conductivity puts it firmly in the class 'insulators'.

A: Really? Well, I know gold exists in nature, and is shiny and yellow, so I have no particular beef with gold-based "this ingot" theories ...

 

[DeiRenDopa]

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

Ah yes, I see ...

Well, I hope that you and can agree to disagree on the change in the accepted theory of gravity ... to me replacing a force with geometry is about as radical a change as I can imagine, and if one can't use 'overturned' for something that dramatic, then what could you possibly use the word for?

In any case, what about my comments on whether "DE" could be "overturned" (or not)? Does my explanation make sense now?

While we're at it, one other thing, if I may ... I think a strong case could be made that what seems like pedantry to most outsiders is in fact an important aspect in science. For starters, you can't expect to get consistency if you aren't quite pedantic about things like definitions, postulates, and 'testable', can you? An example, relevant to our discussion of gravity: have you heard of the various 'equivalence principles'? Do the distinctions between them seem pedantic to you? Can you see why an experiment may test one equivalence principle but not another?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

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

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

Ignoring the amazing demonstration of (willful?) ignorance concerning the two key concepts in this post of yours, this point has been recycled so many times it must surely be worn out by now?

But let's try something you got tired over one more time, shall we?

You asked a very good question: How can I, MM, falsify any part of the inflation hypothesis? (or words to that effect)

And I gave you two suggestions (namely, 1) demonstrate that the observable universe is not, in fact, isotropic and homogeneous on the largest scales (modulo a good quantitative version of this), and
2) show conclusively that the CMB is not, in fact, cosmological (e.g. that it arises within ~100 Mpc of our galaxy)).
Of course, I could easily give you more.

One point: this is not, and should not, be personal ... PS, DD, SI, RC, anyone could, in principle, have a go at the demonstration or the showing.

Another point: should anyone be successful at either of these, 'inflation' would be regarded as seriously flawed.

May I ask what part of this process of empirical testing do you not get?

Is it that you do not understand 'inflation' well enough to appreciate how either 1) or 2) would falsify it? Or that you cannot conceive how either 1) or 2) could be done, even in principle? Or something else?

 

[Michael Mozina]

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

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

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

The problem has nothing to do with language or semantics, but your lack of ability to show any cause/effect relationship between acceleration and gravity. If anything we would expect that the curvature of gravity would cause *deceleration*. I don't jump up and fly off the Earth and accelerate away from it. Where's the evidence that gravity is related to acceleration in some way? I don't care about semantics, I care that you've got no cause/effect relationship between gravity and acceleration, and you're stuffing GR full of metaphysics and using fancy words to hide the fact you've never established that gravity is in any way related to that observation (actually interpretation) of acceleration.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Ah yes, I see ...

Well, I hope that you and can agree to disagree on the change in the accepted theory of gravity ... to me replacing a force with geometry is about as radical a change as I can imagine, and if one can't use 'overturned' for something that dramatic, then what could you possibly use the word for?

OK, let's quibble about the word overturn. Newton (with Copernicus and Galileo) overturned Aristotle and Ptolemy. The world's view of how the universe worked was totally revised in a most breathtaking manner. Darwin overturned biblical views of the diversity of the species on earth, similarly in a breathtaking way. The subtleties of GR are understood by a relatively small community of specialists. The world at large still sees the moon circling the earth in a totally Newtonian way. GR has profound cosmological implications and many technological consequences recognized by a relatively small number of people. When I think of the solar system I think of it in a Newtonian way. That cannot change for a layman like me. So, it is within the context of that viewpoint that I made my original comment using the word overturned. I am not asking you to revise your usage but merely pointing out that the discussion took a turn toward differences in definition and not substance.

In any case, what about my comments on whether "DE" could be "overturned" (or not)? Does my explanation make sense now?

Got it.

While we're at it, one other thing, if I may ... I think a strong case could be made that what seems like pedantry to most outsiders is in fact an important aspect in science. For starters, you can't expect to get consistency if you aren't quite pedantic about things like definitions, postulates, and 'testable', can you? An example, relevant to our discussion of gravity: have you heard of the various 'equivalence principles'? Do the distinctions between them seem pedantic to you? Can you see why an experiment may test one equivalence principle but not another?

I agree but I don't see any connection here to your previous comments

 

[DeiRenDopa]

The problem has nothing to do with language or semantics, but your lack of ability to show any cause/effect relationship between acceleration and gravity. If anything we would expect that the curvature of gravity would cause *deceleration*. I don't jump up and fly off the Earth and accelerate away from it. Where's the evidence that gravity is related to acceleration in some way? I don't care about semantics, I care that you've got no cause/effect relationship between gravity and acceleration, and you're stuffing GR full of metaphysics and using fancy words to hide the fact you've never established that gravity is in any way related to that observation (actually interpretation) of acceleration.

(bold added)

Round and round we go ... if you don't understand GR, and don't understand the explanations you've already been given, I have Buckley's of changing anything now ...

The answer to the question, in bold, in the EFE (Einstein Field Equations).

Oh, and the empirical fact, tested by at least three independent methods, that those equations match the relevant observations, to within the estimated error bars.

MM, if you wish to make new meanings for key terms (more or less on the fly, it seems), please do take the time and trouble to make you idiosyncratic meanings clear to your audience. It might also assist communication if you could try to use these newly defined words consistently ...

 

[Michael Mozina]

That's the point, you can't control things directly so you have to control them indirectly by changing your observation.

In the medical example there was a physical change in the parameters due to a smoking ban. There was a real physical change to real physical people, and the effect of that physical change could be measured in the experiences (lack thereof) of real physical people. We can't physically affect distant objects, so even 'natural' experimentation is impossible. We can really only "observe" nature at that distance. We can actually get into interplanetary space now, and voyager spacecraft may/have? reach interstellar space, but we will can only speculate on what intergalactic space might be like. We'll probably never measure it directly, certainly not in my lifetime. About all we can do with distant galaxies is observe them.

There is no real point in doing a line by line rebuttal. It should not be necessary. The basic problem here is that even "natural" experiments are *empirical and physical* in nature and it is based on measuring physical things we can examine. You can't "assume" the existence of a whole new force of nature like inflation or dark energy based on a pure observation. We can't determine any *cause* based upon a pure observation where we do not even know the beginning conditions with any accuracy. For instance....

What was the exact physical size of the universe before the 'bang'?
What was physical "cause" of the bang?
Why didn't is crush itself back together again in an instant?

These are complete mysteries to us today. We have no certainty of any of the conditions prior to the bang, or the compactness of the universe prior to expansion. There cannot therefore be any sort of "natural experiment" for us to begin to understand. In the natural experiment I cited we *knew* the variable that had changed, and we were certain that other parameters stayed fairly constant. Even then most scientists would consider this idea "rather speculative".

Since you and I do not know the conditions prior to the bang (assuming there even was one as we percieve it), we have no way to know which factors may have changed. No natural experiment is possible without real information, and we simply do not have any such information to work with.

 

[Ziggurat]

Why didn't is crush itself back together again in an instant?

These are complete mysteries to us today.

That last one isn't a mystery at all. Why would you think it would crush itself again instantly? Einstein's field equations (which you say you accept) indicate nothing of the sort should happen. I suspect you tried to compare the universe at its early stages to a Schwarzchild black hole, but such a comparison is unwarranted. But since you've repeatedly shown yourself ignorant of general relativity, this would hardly be a surprising mistake.

 

[Tubbythin]

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

Snore. Its not something that can't be empirically demonstrated. We can make predictions from inflation theory then test them by observation.

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

Its a problem in the scientific sense, ie we don't have an answer. Yes, I'll grant you, its not a matter of life and death.

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

I don't claim to the answer. Others more knowledgeable than I think it is (or is close to the answer). This has been backed up with relevant papers

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

Its not my theory. If you can't understand that then I really can't be bothered to converse with you any more.

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

I did no such thing. And you've been told many times, the lambda term has been there all along.

 

[Michael Mozina]

(bold added)

Round and round we go ...

That is only because you can't demonstrate your claim. If you had or could establish a *qualitative link*, a physical cause/effect relationship between "dark energy" and gravity I'd be happy to let you stuff it anywhere you like. Since you can't demonstrate such a thing exists in nature, all you did is add an unknown and non physically defined variable into your equation and have not *explained* a single thing with your mathematical construct. You just added another unknown and undefined fudge factor in there and away you go, round and round, not once identifying the cause, and not once demonstrating any new force of nature is necessary to explain this observation. It's dead simply by virtue of an Occum's razor argument. It's completely unnecessary since *any* vector field would do. If you called it "EM energy", I probably would let that one slide and I'd still bust your chops on the inflation claim. When you call it "dark energy" however, it's just another 'fudge factor'.

The answer to the question, in bold, in the EFE (Einstein Field Equations).

No it's not. I'm not complaining about his equations, just your metaphysical use of them. Acceleration can and might be due to a pervasive and expanding EM field. It could be caused by a spherical gravity well all around us. It can't possibly be due to "dark energy", because it doesn't exist. It is a figment of your math formula. It's your *use of* the EFE that is the problem, not the equations themselves, or my understanding of them. You never actually identified a real physical "cause". You simply made up a word and stuffed it into your magic postdicted equation as a fudge factor that makes up 75 percent of your theory. That paper I posted earlier shows that DE can be expressed as an ordinary vector field so DE is simply MHD added to GR theory and it's ultimately morphing into a form of EU theory, albeit one with a supernatural inflation deity.

 

[Tubbythin]

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

Its not my theory. Please get this in to your head.

 

[Tubbythin]

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

Please, using the relevant maths, and if you like observations, demonstrate how current flow could be responsible.

 

[Michael Mozina]

That last one isn't a mystery at all. Why would you think it would crush itself again instantly?

Because you just put all the mass/energy of the whole physical universe into close proximity!

Let's try a new angle here and you folks *explain* this theory of your, step by step.

Start with the size of this "thing" of yours. How big was it prior to "expansion"? What was it made of? Did it have Higg's bosons? If not, where did they come from?

 

[Michael Mozina]

Its not my theory. Please get this in to your head.

I'm sorry. It's a bad and sloppy habit of mine, and I realize it's not your personal theory.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

OK, let's quibble about the word overturn. Newton (with Copernicus and Galileo) overturned Aristotle and Ptolemy. The world's view of how the universe worked was totally revised in a most breathtaking manner. Darwin overturned biblical views of the diversity of the species on earth, similarly in a breathtaking way. The subtleties of GR are understood by a relatively small community of specialists. The world at large still sees the moon circling the earth in a totally Newtonian way. GR has profound cosmological implications and many technological consequences recognized by a relatively small number of people. When I think of the solar system I think of it in a Newtonian way. That cannot change for a layman like me. So, it is within the context of that viewpoint that I made my original comment using the word overturned. I am not asking you to revise your usage but merely pointing out that the discussion took a turn toward differences in definition and not substance.

Thanks, that's quite a help.

And I see now why you say that 'gravity' is unlikely to change much in future ... you were looking at it in a quite different way than I was. I remember that when I first learned that in GR gravity is not a force I was gobsmacked; it just didn't make sense! How could one of the four* fundamental forces of nature turn out to be not a force at all! Outrageous!!

[...]

I agree but I don't see any connection here to your previous comments

It's unimportant ... you had said "Your comments are rather pedantic" in connection with something I wrote, and in the context I felt that clarity and precision was exactly what was needed ... I took the (later) opportunity to make a plug for (scientific) pedantry ...

* though I may only have known of two or three at the time

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Because you just put all the mass/energy of the whole physical universe into close proximity!

Let's try a new angle here and you folks *explain* this theory of your, step by step.

Start with the size of this "thing" of yours. How big was it prior to "expansion"? What was it made of? Did it have Higg's bosons? If not, where did they come from?

(bold added)

Only if you promise ('cross your heart and hope to die') that you will stick to the standard meanings of all key terms, refrain from attributing "this theory" to any of the current participants in this thread, and refrain from re-writing history.

 

[temporalillusion]

In the medical example there was a physical change in the parameters due to a smoking ban. There was a real physical change to real physical people, and the effect of that physical change could be measured in the experiences (lack thereof) of real physical people. We can't physically affect distant objects, so even 'natural' experimentation is impossible. We can really only "observe" nature at that distance. We can actually get into interplanetary space now, and voyager spacecraft may/have? reach interstellar space, but we will can only speculate on what intergalactic space might be like. We'll probably never measure it directly, certainly not in my lifetime. About all we can do with distant galaxies is observe them.

You pick on one specific example where it suits you. As I said there are entire disciplines of science that depend significantly on natural experiments. If you can't affect distant object, if you can't create your own control group, you manipulate your methodology to provide the necessary observations to isolate variables.

The basic problem here is that even "natural" experiments are *empirical and physical* in nature and it is based on measuring physical things we can examine. You can't "assume" the existence of a whole new force of nature like inflation or dark energy based on a pure observation. We can't determine any *cause* based upon a pure observation where we do not even know the beginning conditions with any accuracy.

"Cause"? What causes anything?

Inference is an important tool in science. No assuming is going on.

These are complete mysteries to us today. We have no certainty of any of the conditions prior to the bang, or the compactness of the universe prior to expansion. There cannot therefore be any sort of "natural experiment" for us to begin to understand. In the natural experiment I cited we *knew* the variable that had changed, and we were certain that other parameters stayed fairly constant. Even then most scientists would consider this idea "rather speculative".

Since you and I do not know the conditions prior to the bang (assuming there even was one as we percieve it), we have no way to know which factors may have changed. No natural experiment is possible without real information, and we simply do not have any such information to work with.

We may not have such information now, but who knows what kinds of things will open up with a good theory of quantum gravity, or when we are able to detect gravity waves, or any number of other things. Not that it's necessary to know conditions "prior" to the big bang to infer inflation... if "prior" means anything at all (what's north of the north pole?).

 

[Michael Mozina]

Snore. Its not something that can't be empirically demonstrated. We can make predictions from inflation theory then test them by observation.

Let's change one word here: We can make predictions from creation theory, then test them by observation. God created the heavens and the Earth with inflation. Please demonstrate that I'm wrong. Keep in mind that I have all of your math to support my claim and I have identified the *cause* of the inflation phase.

Its a problem in the scientific sense, ie we don't have an answer. Yes, I'll grant you, its not a matter of life and death.

So when I go out looking for a cosmology theory, inflation isn't high on my priority list. I'm looking for something scientifically useful, something that actually might help explain something in real experiment, or inside of our solar system. That is what draws me towards Birkeland's work. I know it works in a lab, and I know many of his key 'predictions' (real predictions, not postdicted ones) have been verified by satellites in space. I know that MHD theory and GR theory work here on Earth and I have every reason to believe they work in space. That combo of GR and MHD theory is attractive to me for it's *practical value*, where inflation is pure ad hoc "prophetic" creationism, albeit on a much longer time line than YEC.

I don't claim to the answer. Others more knowledgeable than I think it is (or is close to the answer). This has been backed up with relevant papers

But papers don't tell us cause, only *experiments* can do that.

Its not my theory. If you can't understand that then I really can't be bothered to converse with you any more.

I hear you. It's an annoying habit. I'm sorry.

I did no such thing. And you've been told many times, the lambda term has been there all along.

The "lambda term" as you call it is simply a "change over time" variable. It isn't related to any particular "cause/effect" relationship. Inflation did it is not acceptable because inflation doesn't exist. Likewise "DE" did it is an unacceptable Lambda variable because it doesn't exist in nature either. Lambda existed *before* DE and inflation were stuffed into these equations. Since no cause/effect relationship between inflation and DE and movement was ever shown, these cannot be related to any real force that might be used as Lambda. DE can actually be replace with EM fields right now. Why not get rid of DE and use EM fields in your Lambda?

 

[Michael Mozina]

(bold added)

Only if you promise ('cross your heart and hope to die') that you will stick to the standard meanings of all key terms, refrain from attributing "this theory" to any of the current participants in this thread, and refrain from re-writing history.

I promise to not rewrite history. I'll stick to simply asking you questions.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

However, the quoted statement is about cosmology, and about two alternatives in particular (SS and PC), as well as "observational contradictions of the big bang". The track record - in terms of published papers on these topics - of the 34 signatories is pretty dismal (with a few notable exceptions), even depressing ... to me it reads like whining of the most contemptible kind.

Here, try some of these papers.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?return_req=no_params&&author=Alfven,+H&db_key=AST
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/n...eq=no_params&&author=Falthammar,+C&db_key=AST

I didn't get around to clicking on those links until now ...

... MM, you really are a hoot!

I write about the track record of the 34 initial signatories to the document you cite, in terms of published papers on SS, PC, and "observational contradictions of the big bang", and what do you say in your reply?

Why, you give a list of publications of Carl-Gunne Fälthammar (who is not one of those 34 signatories) and Hannes Alfvén, who died in 1995 ... nine years before the statement was published!!

What was my hypothesis again? Oh yes, "that your use of language is so incoherent, and so inconsistent, that it is not possible to have a meaningful discussion with you." Hypothesis passes yet another empirical test.