Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[W.D.Clinger]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.4643

Maybe you might start with that paper for me?

http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.4643

Has anyone ever responded to this criticism of the WMAP data?

Tim Thompson posted a couple of pretty good responses in the following thread, which you started for the purpose of discussing that paper (and then abandoned):
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169137

http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.2352

How about this one?

Probably not, since it came out just two days ago: "Last revised 17 May 2010"

 

[Michael Mozina]

Tim Thompson posted a couple of pretty good responses in the following thread, which you started for the purpose of discussing that paper (and then abandoned):
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169137


Probably not, since it came out just two days ago: "Last revised 17 May 2010"

I just went back to Tim's response, and I agree he did a nice job. I'll give him a couple of days on the last paper.

 

[ben m]

Yes, and therefore it (and DM and inflation) never should have been "ruled in" to begin with.

So somehow you knew what the result of the Xenon100 experiment before they did the experiment?

Well, it's "logically impossible" to ever verify or falsify inflation in an empirical experiment.

Aha! I see. Since the definition of "MM-empirical" is "random things that MM personally likes", and he doesn't like anything to do with dark energy, then it is logically impossible for a dark energy experiment to be MM-empirical---by definition. It's like saying "It's logically impossible to ever find unappealing food that tastes good."

Back in the real world: It is NOT logically impossible to test dark energy with ordinary lab experiments. You just can't afford those, and/or you won't live long enough to see the results. What's your threshold, Michael? Or rather---what's the Universe's threshhold? For what value of Q is the Universe logically forbidden from containing hard-to-test phenomena?

 

[Michael Mozina]

So somehow you knew what the result of the Xenon100 experiment before they did the experiment?

No, but there was nothing about "physics in general" that requires the existence of any form of exotic matter and you don't seem the least bit willing to rethink your position even after it failed a major 'test'?

Aha! I see. Since the definition of "MM-empirical" is "random things that MM personally likes", and he doesn't like anything to do with dark energy, then it is logically impossible for a dark energy experiment to be MM-empirical---by definition. It's like saying "It's logically impossible to ever find unappealing food that tastes good."

Er no. Inflation is "dead". It no longer exists in nature even if we belief you that it once did exist in nature. It cannot ever be demonstrated 'empirically' because you killed it.

Dark energy isn't "measurable" here in the solar system according to your theory, so it too is beyond our ability to ever "test". It's evidently really shy around anything that is gravitationally bound, and humans, well, we're gravitation bound to pretty much everything we get close to.

That leaves us with only one thing that might actually show up in a real science experiment here on Earth, your "dark matter" friend. Unfortunately for you, he too has been a "no show" to date. In fact all SUSY theories have so far failed to show up in the lab. So where now does that leave you in terms of empirical physics?

Back in the real world: It is NOT logically impossible to test dark energy with ordinary lab experiments. You just can't afford those, and/or you won't live long enough to see the results.

How would you suggest we even go about trying to test dark energy here on Earth?

 

[Ziggurat]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.4643

Has anyone ever responded to this criticism of the WMAP data?

You could have checked that pretty easily yourself. Just follow the "cited by" link to the side. You would have found that the authors of your paper produced a follow-up paper that provides more details, and this follow-up paper has responses to it from others.

But you don't seem to have any clear idea of the consequences of your link being correct.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Big bang cosmology doesn't need any ad hoc entities to predict a perfect black body lineshape for the CMB.

So what got the party started Zig if not 'inflation'?

 

[ben m]

Define "pretty badly"? It seems to me that's a hell of a lot better than matching it perfectly with a million and one ad hoc entities to make it fit correctly.

"pretty badly" means "it's easily seen to be wrong". A model of the Universe which disagrees with the CMB data by 20% is the wrong model of the Universe. It's wrong and the data tells you it's wrong.

That's what falsification means, Michael. If the model is wrong you have to throw it out or modify it.

If the 20%-wrong model actually contains all of the MM-empirical-laws, then it's obvious that the MM-empirical-laws are insufficient to describe the Universe and the Universe is doing something else. Which is it, Michael? Do you want to live with the wrong model and pretend it's good enough? Or do you want to change the model---tweak it, you might say---by deviating from your magic list of MM-empirical details?

(Note, of course: the CMB is only one of many things that tells you EU/PC is wrong.)

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Define "pretty badly"? It seems to me that's a hell of a lot better than matching it perfectly with a million and one ad hoc entities to make it fit correctly.

Work it out for yourself - here's the last Lerner paper on the topic (15 years' old now), and the last Peratt one (20 years' old).

RC has given you links to the WMAP data, so why not download it, and make your own analysis?

Oh, and don't forget the other thing I mentioned: the several hundred point sources found in the WMAP observations (you can start with the 5-year catalog if you like, it's probably easier to work with). Your task is to explain why the number and intensity of these point sources (which matches the standard model predictions so well) using a model of the CMB that is optically thick for most of those sources.

For lurkers: there's a nice symmetry here, an optical depth question whose answer shows just how fatally flawed an alternative model is, just as an optical depth question revealed fatal flaws in MM's solar "model" (though there's a vast difference between the two: the Peratt/Lerner model(s) are quantitative, MM's isn't).

 

[ben m]

So what got the party started Zig if not 'inflation'?

Bzzt. Wrong. Inflation is a hypothesis which explains why the CMB temperature should be the nearly *same* looking north vs. south, and it further makes some predictions about the angular scale of any deviations.

Inflation is totally unrelated to whether the CMB spectrum has a blackbody distribution or some other distribution. Inflation is totally unrelated to what the temperature is.

Part of the reason that you don't like "standard cosmology", Michael, is that you don't actually know what standard cosmology SAYS. You've taken a bunch of cosmology words, made up nonsensical meanings for them, and you're all excited about debunking that. What gave you the idea that this was useful?

Still waiting for a cost-threshhold on your definition of "logically impossible". A citation from Boole or Peano would be great, but I'd settle for Birkeland in a pinch.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Tim Thompson posted a couple of pretty good responses in the following thread, which you started for the purpose of discussing that paper (and then abandoned):
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169137

Ah yes, the joys of the lather-wash-rinse-repeat cycle!

Mustn't grumble though, re-reading the old threads can be quite, um, amusing (though the apparently wilful ignorance is rather depressing).

 

[Tim Thompson]

Dark Energy and Empirical Science

Dark energy is a perfectly straightforward hypothesis.

It's not "perfectly straight forward" enough to demonstrate it in a lab, now is it?

So what? That has nothing at all to do with the question. Whether or not dark energy is empirical in nature is not directly dependent on laboratory experiments. It is yet another fatal flaw in your thinking that you believe laboratory experiments are the only source of empirical facts. We have been over this ground before as well (e.g., What is "Empirical" Science? IV, What is "Empirical" Science? III, What is "Empirical" Science? II and What is "Empirical" Science?).

Consider this quote from What is Empirical Science? II:

One of the essential points of science vs religion is the empirical verification of an hypothesis through observation. Dark energy & dark matter are in fact 100% empirical because their existence, as well as all of the physical properties of both, are derived entirely from observation. If you are going to claim that dark matter & dark energy are "religious", then you have no choice but to reject the validity of observation as a method for the verification of an hypothesis. This too is clearly a religious, rather than a scientific point of view.

And consider this quote from What is "Empirical" Science? (emphasis added for this occasion):

If you are suggesting that dark matter & dark energy are "religious" in nature, you are quite mistaken. Of course, we have had this discussion before, and will no doubt have it once again. Both dark matter & dark energy are 100% pure and unadulterated empirical concepts. If you intend to argue that they are not, then it is necessary to deny the validity of science altogether, which then clearly makes yours the 100% pure & unadulterated religious position.

I guess my prediction from January has come true 4 1/2 months later. We are having this discussion again, as predicted. And once again I will predict again that we will have this discussion again, as we seem to have every discussion again, sooner or later. You are just as wrong now as you were then in your assessment of controlled laboratory experiments as the exclusive arbiter of empiricism.

Controlled laboratory experiments have an obvious, and sometimes crucial role in all empirical sciences, everybody knows that. Specific claims about the precise physical circumstances in the melting transformation of water ice into liquid water are obviously in the realm of precise & controlled laboratory experimentation. Anyone can see that controlled laboratory experiments will be crucial to the verification or falsification of hypotheses on that question. However, specific claims about the formation of large scale structure in the universe are equally obviously forbidden to the realm of controlled laboratory experimentation. The only avenues of exploration available to study such cosmological phenomena are astronomical observations and numerical simulations based on the fundamental mathematical physics (the numerical simulations are in my opinion a form of controlled laboratory experiment, though this might be a controversial idea).

The heart of empirical science is the ability to formulate & test relevant hypotheses, and to make progress in understanding based on the outcome of those tests. Whether or not the tests are, or should be, physical, controlled laboratory experiments, depends entirely on the nature of the hypothesis and the question at hand.

It's not perfectly straight forward in the sense it is based on known laws of physics, now is it?

On the contrary, dark energy is firmly rooted in the known laws of physics, a fact which could easily escape your careless approach to what you call "science". First, dark energy is constrained by observation, which makes it empirical. Second, dark energy is constrained by the fundamental laws of physics, by which I mean, for example, that it must conserve energy & momentum and obey the laws of thermodynamics, just like everything else. Dark energy is no more "magical" than is gravity; it's just another field in the great scheme of things, just like everything else.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

But you don't seem to have any clear idea of the consequences of your link being correct.

To understand the consequences would require some understanding of empirical science, experimental error, and falsifiability, not to mention some understanding of how the mathematics of general relativity led to GR's prediction of a Big Bang^WP giving rise to a nearly isotropic CMBR.

 

[Michael Mozina]

"pretty badly" means "it's easily seen to be wrong". A model of the Universe which disagrees with the CMB data by 20% is the wrong model of the Universe. It's wrong and the data tells you it's wrong.

That's what falsification means, Michael. If the model is wrong you have to throw it out or modify it.

I wouldn't be inclined to simply "throw it out" anymore than you threw out the BB theory based on SN data. I wouldn't however be inclined to simply stuff it full of ad hoc nonsense just to make it fit.

If the 20%-wrong model actually contains all of the MM-empirical-laws, then it's obvious that the MM-empirical-laws are insufficient to describe the Universe and the Universe is doing something else. Which is it, Michael?

All it tells me is that the model needs work. It doesn't justify my stuffing it full of "metaphysical baggage" just to hammer out a decent fit!

Do you want to live with the wrong model and pretend it's good enough? Or do you want to change the model---tweak it, you might say---by deviating from your magic list of MM-empirical details?

I don't have to "pretend" anything. If it's the 'best' empirical option that I have to work with at the moment without resorting to "pretend entities", I suppose I'll have to live with it for the time being. If however it can be tweaked to fit the observations more closely, without interjecting metaphysics, then it's certainly worth modifying the model.

(Note, of course: the CMB is only one of many things that tells you EU/PC is wrong.)

That solar wind and those million degree loops tell me it's right. I know it's right because that has actually been "lab tested".

 

[Michael Mozina]

To understand the consequences would require some understanding of empirical science, experimental error, and falsifiability, not to mention some understanding of how the mathematics of general relativity led to GR's prediction of a Big Bang^WP giving rise to a nearly isotropic CMBR.

In one of these threads we went through Alfven's "Bang" theory and it simply started with on isotropic layout of matter and antimatter. The isotropic feature isn't the be- all-end-all that you seem to imagine it to be.

 

[ben m]

How would you suggest we even go about trying to test dark energy here on Earth?

Easy. You launch an array of hundreds of satellite labs, each one sort of like a LISA pathfinder station but presumably using BEC atom interferometers or some yet-to-be-invented precision measurement device. You send them out Pioneer-like trajectories way past the heliopause, then arrange them into a spherical shell with one extra station in the middle. Then you have all of them measure their distances from all of the others. (They should also all measure all local E and B fields, radiation pressure, etc.) Then you measure their trajectories with respect to one another, using the ordinary laws of gravity, and you let this run for a few hundred years. Dark energy, if present, is an ordinary gravitational force and given sufficient precision you would detect it as an otherwise-unexpected component of the relative accelerations of the objects.

It's not logically impossible, Michael---you've been tossing the word "logically" around with the same wild abandon that you've been tossing "empirical" around for years. You have no idea what it means, you just apply it to things you like and withhold it from things you don't.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Bzzt. Wrong. Inflation is a hypothesis which explains why the CMB temperature should be the nearly *same* looking north vs. south, and it further makes some predictions about the angular scale of any deviations.

Nothing goes "bang" without inflation ben. No 'bang", no "background". You're ignoring the question because you don't like the implication of the question.

Inflation is totally unrelated to whether the CMB spectrum has a blackbody distribution or some other distribution. Inflation is totally unrelated to what the temperature is.

But ben, if something didn't put the "bang" in the big bang theory, you wouldn't have anything to look at in the first place!

Part of the reason that you don't like "standard cosmology", Michael, is that you don't actually know what standard cosmology SAYS. You've taken a bunch of cosmology words, made up nonsensical meanings for them, and you're all excited about debunking that. What gave you the idea that this was useful?

You guys are the ones that cannot even seem to agree on anything. You can't blame me for simple confusion when even DRD doesn't seem to buy the whole inflation thing.

Still waiting for a cost-threshhold on your definition of "logically impossible".

It's logically impossible to test for a dead and gone (inflation) deity in the present moment regardless of your budget! How would we even test "dark energy' ben if it's shy around anything and everything that is gravitationally bound? You've created *IMPOSSIBLE* things to even test for in the present moment. When your theory does fail (like the DM test), do you even acknowledge it?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

In one of these threads we went through Alfven's "Bang" theory and it simply started with on isotropic layout of matter and antimatter. The isotropic feature isn't the be- all-end-all that you seem to imagine it to be.

Yeah, and if I recall correctly, "Alfven's "Bang" theory" was DOA, which was quite a surprise to me ... that someone of his undoubted ability should fail to understand General Relativity so spectacularly (there were also loads of inconsistencies between his idea and the relevant observational results, even those known at the time he wrote that paper).

Now, as ben said in another post, if you'd like to take his idea, tweak it, add some different physical processes and assumptions, write it up, and get it published ...

How does it go MM? If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Or, time to trade in your Aristotelian physics glasses for Newtonian ones.

 

[Michael Mozina]

So what? That has nothing at all to do with the question. Whether or not dark energy is empirical in nature is not directly dependent on laboratory experiments.

Since we could say the same thing about the topic of God, how exactly does your "science" differ from religion Tim?

 

[W.D.Clinger]

But you don't seem to have any clear idea of the consequences of your link being correct.

To understand the consequences would require some understanding of empirical science, experimental error, and falsifiability, not to mention some understanding of how the mathematics of general relativity led to GR's prediction of a Big Bang^WP giving rise to a nearly isotropic CMBR.

In one of these threads we went through Alfven's "Bang" theory and it simply started with on isotropic layout of matter and antimatter. The isotropic feature isn't the be- all-end-all that you seem to imagine it to be.

You have just confirmed Ziggurat's point, and mine. Since the conclusions of the Liu and Li papers, even if correct, falsify neither the theories you abhore nor the theories you adore, why have you been citing those papers as though they were relevant to your "argument"?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

That solar wind Mozwind and those million degree loops Mozcharges tell me it's right. I know it's right because that has actually been "lab tested" I have faith that it is.

Fixed that for you.

Are you going to produce the Mozcharge and its fellow magical entities in controlled experiments in your lab sometime soon?