Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[DeiRenDopa]

MM responded to this, but did not answer the key question.

Here it is again:

What are the MM rules for determining acceptability of scaling up, when it comes to ""real" physics"-based explanations of astronomical observations?

If you can demonstrate it exists here on Earth, say gravity or an EM field, you are welcome to scale it to whatever size you like. It will of course have physical ramifications when you scale such a thing that should correlate to what we might expect based on our experiments here on Earth. In other words if you scaled Birkeland's work in the lab, it would have physical ramification as it relates to ionization states of the atmosphere, discharge processes in the atmosphere, etc. I don't even have a philosophical problem with the concept of a "black hole" provided you aren't emotionally attached to the concept of infinite density.

Do you not see, MM, that what you wrote is a non-answer to the question I asked?

Let's try something simpler.

What, in the MM worldview, constitutes "demonstrat[ing] it exists here on Earth"? Specifically, what are the experiments which "demonstrate" (in the MM sense) that "gravity" exists (here on Earth)?

From those experiments, how does one (someone other than MM) go about "scaling up" gravity?

I need an answer that is objective, and describes a method that anyone with the necessary minimum of knowledge and capability can follow, and get exactly the same answer (i.e. objective, independent verification).

You may like to take the example of the discovery of Neptune.

 

[sol invictus]

Michael, I don't know about anyone else, but I've stopped reading anything past the first line of your posts.

No matter how you try and rationalize it sol, Einstein's use of lambda resulted in nothing more than a static, non expanding, non contracting universe.
<SNIP>

..

 

[Michael Mozina]

..

Where will we find your ever elusive CDM (in terms of it's mass)?

 

[Tim Thompson]

XENON100 and Dark Matter: The Real Story III

This is a factually false statement. It is not true that dark matter failed to show up in a lab. Rather, it is true that a narrow range of possible dark matter particles, appear to remain undetected in one particular experiment. The results of that experiment have no relation at all to other possible dark matter particles which would not have shown up in that experiment, even if they were common in that very same lab.

So your whole argument now boils down to a "dark matter of the ever shrinking gaps", is that it Tim? How much "gap" is left Tim? Where *exactly* (stop being so dodgy) will we find your invisible friend?

Personally, I don't know. A specialist in the field, or someone with greater knowledge of the particle physics than I have could doubtless give a more detailed answer about the mass ranges of the possible particle families that could make up non-baryonic dark matter.

You fail to understand what science actually is, and how it should actually be done. Ignorance is a necessary aspect of science. Theory invariably establishes a search space to explore experimentally. In this case, the search space consists of possible particle masses or energies, which could be revealed either in XENON100 type experiments, or in high energy particle experiments. Once the search space is established by theory, it is then the business of the experimenters to explore that search space. One does not give up and quit until the search space has been explored, either in entirety, or to an extent at least large enough to satisfy the science community that the searched for particles will not be found. Only then does one seriously question the underlying theory (absent some other, independent reason). The fact that I do not personally know the extent of the search space does not affect the fact that the search space exists to be explored. "Dark matter of the gaps" is nothing but a failed propaganda ploy to discredit the standard theory, allowing you to avoid having to confess that you have no viable candidate of your own as a cause for the dark matter effect.

And I note that part of my post to which you did not respond ...

Furthermore, the specific results of that experiment are in serious dispute by other scientists; Mozina knows this, but choses to ignore the debate, for fear that it might threaten his religious preconception. This is all outlined with references in my post from just a few days ago, XENON 100 and Dark Matter: The Real Story.

It remains unclear that the XENON100 experiment could have done what has been claimed for it. However, it is clear that only a small fraction of the theoretically established search space has been explored. It is not yet time to give up and quit in the search for non-baryonic dark matter.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Personally, I don't know.

Wanna bet everyone makes that same excuse Tim?

A specialist in the field, or someone with greater knowledge of the particle physics than I have could doubtless give a more detailed answer about the mass ranges of the possible particle families that could make up non-baryonic dark matter.

Translation: I'm clueless, let's punt.

You fail to understand what science actually is, and how it should actually be done. Ignorance is a necessary aspect of science.

Except of course when it's related to EU/PC theory and then it's "unacceptable" to you personally, so much so that you've been on crusade against PC theory for longer than I've been involved in the concept.

It remains unclear that the XENON100 experiment could have done what has been claimed for it. However, it is clear that only a small fraction of the theoretically established search space has been explored. It is not yet time to give up and quit in the search for non-baryonic dark matter.

Be specific. Set some rational upper and lower boundaries for us and tell us *EXACTLY* how much of that search space has been eliminated now. What exact particle or particles from SUSY theory are you expecting CDM to relate to at this point in time?

 

[ben m]

Where will we find your ever elusive CDM (in terms of it's mass)?

Tell me how much money I have to build the experiment with, and how long I am allowed to run it. Then I'll tell you which specific dark matter hypotheses are testable with that amount of money and time. Increase the amount of money and I'll increase the range of hypotheses that I can test. Get it?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

You fail to understand what science actually is, and how it should actually be done. Ignorance is a necessary aspect of science.

Except of course when it's related to EU/PC theory and then it's "unacceptable" to you personally, so much so that you've been on crusade against PC theory for longer than I've been involved in the concept.

First, "EU/PC theory" is a figment of your own imagination^.

Second, Electric Universe ideas are obviously, and explicitly, non-science (see Tom Bridgman's blog entries, for example).

Third, Plasma Cosmology comes in several flavours. That of Alfvén (and Klein) is science, but inconsistent with a wide range of very different astronomical observations (e.g. those of the CMB and the Hubble relationship). That of Peratt and Lerner is explicitly, overtly non-science (as keen readers of the Plasma Cosmology - Woo or not thread know full well^^).

Note this, MM, and note it well: every one of the ideas proposed under the umbrella of "EU/PC theory" (or Electric Universe, or Plasma Cosmology) has been examined, in considerable detail, here in JREF, and shown to be internally inconsistent, inconsistent with well-established theory where the domains of applicability overlap, and/or inconsistent with relevant experimental and observational results.

In short, "EU/PC theory" fails the standard scientific tests (and "crusade" exists only in your fervid imagination).

^ easy to show I'm wrong - provide links to, say, a dozen papers, published in relevant, peer-reviewed journals, which explicitly set out what this is (and by "explicit" I mean that each paper uses that exact phrase)
^^ interestingly, those readers include you, MM, so it's pretty disingenuous of you to write what you did

 

[ben m]

Be specific. Set some rational upper and lower boundaries for us and tell us *EXACTLY* how much of that search space has been eliminated now. What exact particle or particles from SUSY theory are you expecting CDM to relate to at this point in time?

That's funny, I had the impression that you thought dark matter was fundamentally un-empirical because it was fundamentally untestable. Now you're simply complaining that we're not testing enough of it fast enough?

(No you're not, you're spouting whatever baloney you think will score you a point and prevent people from asking EU/PC questions. I recall---shall I hunt down the post?---that a while ago you conceded that dark matter was in fact empirical and that your main objection was to dark energy.)

Anyway. There are real scientists in this business, Michael, and they answer this question in every single paper they publish on dark matter searches. You've never read the papers with enough understanding to recognize it, nor followed a citation link, nor been to a talk, nor a colloquium. Nor, apparently, done a Google search which would have pointed you to http://dmtools.brown.edu where you can make plots which answer this question.

 

[Michael Mozina]

That's funny, I had the impression that you thought dark matter was fundamentally un-empirical because it was fundamentally untestable. Now you're simply complaining that we're not testing enough of it fast enough?

No, I'm noting that the *single* one of your metaphysical friends that could be "tested" even without control mechanisms failed to show up in the lab. Now what? Pure denial? What exactly counts as a "falsification" of one of your invisible friends anyway? You've got an "exotic matter of the gaps" thing going at this point, and that is the only one of the three of your metaphysical entities that we might actually "test". Even your proposed test of lambda in no way linked your other two invisible friends to lambda in any physical empirical way. You simply "assumed" the "cause".

(No you're not, you're spouting whatever baloney you think will score you a point and prevent people from asking EU/PC questions. I recall---shall I hunt down the post?---that a while ago you conceded that dark matter was in fact empirical and that your main objection was to dark energy.)

No, actually I agree that DM was the least metaphysical (and therefore the most vulnerable) of your theories. Even though you have no known source of them, it's possible you might find such a thing in LHC. There are ways to "test" the concept even without control mechanisms. So far it's not looking good for "cold dark matter".

Anyway. There are real scientists in this business, Michael, and they answer this question in every single paper they publish on dark matter searches.

Er no. There are a gazillion and one "dark matter" searches going on, some of which went up in flames in the xenon100 "test" that you simply don't want to accept.

You know this whole aversion to even "questioning" your "faith" really demonstrates the religious-like nature of what's going on. You have "faith" in some idea. You have no idea if it's really valid or not. You don't really care what the results might suggest to date, you simply "go on believing" without even a single shred of evidence to support any of the three of your made up entities. Your exotic matter concept is something that can be "tested", yet it has failed such "tests". Even still you fail to question any of your beliefs, and you fail to notice the problems with those beliefs. It's a denial based "religion' devoid of empirical support and absolutely in no need of empirical support because the whole thing was always based on "blind faith' in the "unseen".

 

[Michael Mozina]

Tell me how much money I have to build the experiment with, and how long I am allowed to run it. Then I'll tell you which specific dark matter hypotheses are testable with that amount of money and time. Increase the amount of money and I'll increase the range of hypotheses that I can test. Get it?

What I "get" is that you're willing to waste any amount of money on any project that is unrelated to EU/PC theory. You have zero credible evidence that any of your 'missing mass' has anything to do with exotic matter. You have some evidence that the "predicted" mass ranges of many of these hypothetical entities have been eliminated. What's it going to take to get you to let go of your faith in exotic forms of matter anyway?

All you know with any certainty is that your mass estimates are wrong. You have no evidence that any of that is related to exotic forms of matter.

 

[GeeMack]

No matter how you try and rationalize it [...]

If you can demonstrate it exists [...]

So your whole argument [...]

IMO you missed the whole point [...]

Wanna bet [...]

No [...]

What I "get" [...]

Below are a few more words and phrases added to the list of terms that Michael uses but isn't willing/able to define. There are over 200 terms now. Of course we all agree that using terminology and refusing to define it like this is dishonest, the equivalent of flat out lying.

It is a sad commentary on the crackpots and other insane people when all they've got is their home made pile-of-turds version of religion-like "science", criticism of legitimate science that they simply don't/can't understand, and their cowering in fear from even the most rudimentary math like little girls run from spiders. It's possible that it has always been so, but since history is quick to forget the crazies, we don't have readily available examples. The current crop of wannabes will no doubt meet the same fate, receiving well earned ridicule during their lifetimes and becoming just so much dust in the wind when they die.

Michael applies meanings different than the common usage for the words and phrases that he puts in quote marks. Below is an ongoing list of terms which he has surrounded with quotes but is so far unable or unwilling to define. Until he can define these terms, all of his arguments using any of them amount to meaningless nonsense.

The list...

• absolute
• accelerate
• accelerating
• acceleration
• accepted
• act of faith
• ad hoc
• assumed
• assumes
• attractive
• awful
• background
• balance
• ballpark
• bang
• beginning
• believer
• best
• better
• Birkeland current
• black hole
• blind faith
• brands
• cathode
• caught on
• cause
• cause/effect
• cold dark matter
• confused
• control mechanism
• correct
• cosmic repulsion
• create
• creation event
• creativity
• crock
• current flow
• current flows
• dark
• dark energies
• dark energy
• dark energy did it
• dark energy goddess
• dark energy of the gaps
• dark evil thingies
• dark exotic matter god
• dark flow
• dark matter
• dark matter of the ever shrinking gaps
• dead
• decent
• demonstrate
• despicable tactic
• discovery
• divide and conquer
• electromagnetic
• emotional
• empirical science
• empirically
• empirically demonstrated
• empirically qualified
• empirically quantified
• empty
• empty space
• exotic matter of the gaps
• expand
• expanded
• expanding
• expanding space
• explaining
• explains
• extra energy
• failed
• fairly
• faithful
• falsifiable
• falsification
• falsified
• fantasy
• faster than light expansion
• fix
• flavors
• gap
• get
• go on believing
• Godflation
• gravity
• guess
• guessing
• gumby
• Guthism
• hairy inflation
• hairy moflation
• hope
• ignore the cause of the lambda
• in the ballpark
• infinite
• inflation
• inflation did it
• interpret
• invent
• invented
• invisible
• irrelevant
• it's not my fault
• lab tested
• lamba
• learned
• live and let live
• logically impossible
• made it up
• made up
• magicflation did it
• magnetic
• magnetic flux tubes
• magnetic helix
• magnetic reconnection
• make believe
• make up
• making up
• mathematical perfection
• measurable
• metaphysical
• metaphysical baggage
• missing mass
• modified to fit
• narrow the range
• need
• negative
• negative charge
• negative pressure
• negative pressure in a vacuum
• negative pressures in a vacuum
• new
• new and improved inflation genie
• no show
• not having faith
• observational evidence
• observations in physics
• observed acceleration
• other mass
• particle/circuit
• perfect
• phobia
• physical
• physics
• physics in general
• popular
• positive pressure
• positive pressure vacuum
• postdicted
• postdicting a fit
• predicted
• pretend
• pretend entities
• properly
• properties
• prophetic
• pseudoscience
• pushed
• put faith
• qualification
• qualified
• qualify
• quantify
• questioning
• relative
• religion
• repulsive gravity
• ruled in
• scale
• science
• sciences
• simplicity
• somewhere out there
• space
• space expands
• spacetime
• special pleading
• spin
• static
• stretch
• stretching
• superiority
• terminology
• test
• tested
• tests
• theory
• throw it out
• too convenient
• trashed
• tweak
• tweaked
• tweaked to fit
• unacceptable
• unseen
• unseen entities
• unusual
• use
• verification
• verify
• wind down
• woo
• woo with make believe math
• wrong
• zero

 

[ben m]

What I "get" is that you're willing to waste any amount of money on any project that is unrelated to EU/PC theory. You have zero credible evidence that any of your 'missing mass' has anything to do with exotic matter.

Repeat after me: "Particle dark matter is a HYPOTHESIS." Can you type those words? It's a very good hypothesis, for reasons you are incapable of learning---sorry, your loss. We spend money to test hypotheses, an idea you are incapable of learning---too bad, you miss all of science that way.

Do you have an alternative hypothesis explaining the CMB/strong-lensing/weak-lensing/rotation-curve/microlensing/Bullet-cluster/cluster-temperature data? Out with it already.

(ETA: Contrary to your usual assertion, I AM willing to spend money to test EU/PC hypotheses. The "iron sun" hypothesis, for example, cost about $0.25 to test. I devoted 30 valuable seconds to opening my CRC handbook and looking up the melting point of iron. Unfortunately, testing serious dark matter hypotheses is more expensive.)

You have some evidence that the "predicted" mass ranges of many of these hypothetical entities have been eliminated.

What the heck? You didn't go to dmtools.brown.edu yet, did you? Of course you didn't.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

No, I'm noting that the *single* one of your metaphysical friends that could be "tested" even without control mechanisms failed to show up in the lab. Now what? Pure denial? What exactly counts as a "falsification" of one of your invisible friends anyway? You've got an "exotic matter of the gaps" thing going at this point, and that is the only one of the three of your metaphysical entities that we might actually "test". Even your proposed test of lambda in no way linked your other two invisible friends to lambda in any physical empirical way. You simply "assumed" the "cause".



No, actually I agree that DM was the least metaphysical (and therefore the most vulnerable) of your theories. Even though you have no known source of them, it's possible you might find such a thing in LHC. There are ways to "test" the concept even without control mechanisms. So far it's not looking good for "cold dark matter".



Er no. There are a gazillion and one "dark matter" searches going on, some of which went up in flames in the xenon100 "test" that you simply don't want to accept.

You know this whole aversion to even "questioning" your "faith" really demonstrates the religious-like nature of what's going on. You have "faith" in some idea. You have no idea if it's really valid or not. You don't really care what the results might suggest to date, you simply "go on believing" without even a single shred of evidence to support any of the three of your made up entities. Your exotic matter concept is something that can be "tested", yet it has failed such "tests". Even still you fail to question any of your beliefs, and you fail to notice the problems with those beliefs. It's a denial based "religion' devoid of empirical support and absolutely in no need of empirical support because the whole thing was always based on "blind faith' in the "unseen".

Rather than continue to rant^, why not advance the discussion?

Specifically, why not use your time and energy to explain how you go about making decisions and evaluations?

After all, several years (!) of participation in internet discussion fora have brought not one person closer to even understanding what you say, much less accepting it.

For example, how about putting fingers to keyboard and answering my questions?

Here they are again:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What, in the MM worldview, constitutes "demonstrat[ing] it exists here on Earth"? Specifically, what are the experiments which "demonstrate" (in the MM sense) that "gravity" exists (here on Earth)?

From those experiments, how does one (someone other than MM) go about "scaling up" gravity?

I need an answer that is objective, and describes a method that anyone with the necessary minimum of knowledge and capability can follow, and get exactly the same answer (i.e. objective, independent verification).

You may like to take the example of the discovery of Neptune.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
^ shall I re-write this post of yours, that I am quoting, in a semantically equivalent form (full of @&$%* and other gibberish)?

 

[Michael Mozina]

Repeat after me: "Particle dark matter is a HYPOTHESIS."

So it should be called the "Lambda-CDM *HYPOTHESIS*", right?

 

[GeeMack]

So it should be called the "Lambda-CDM *HYPOTHESIS*", right?

Don't you think you should get to defining the more than 200 terms which you use and have not yet defined before you start modifying definitions of other terms and/or trying to correct the particulars of how other things are described? After all, your qualifications to communicate in a sane, rational, and intelligent manner on the subject of physics have been challenged, and you have yet to show that you do possess those qualifications. You might go a long way towards showing that you can communicate effectively, not to mention taking your responsibility for holding up your end of the discussion, if you'd explain what you mean by all those terms you fling around but refuse to define.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

So it should be called the "Lambda-CDM *HYPOTHESIS*", right?

No.

You might benefit from checking the standard meaning of "hypothesis" and "theory" (HINT: they do not mean what you seem to think they mean).

 

[tusenfem]

What I "get" is that you're willing to waste any amount of money on any project that is unrelated to EU/PC theory. You have zero credible evidence that any of your 'missing mass' has anything to do with exotic matter. You have some evidence that the "predicted" mass ranges of many of these hypothetical entities have been eliminated. What's it going to take to get you to let go of your faith in exotic forms of matter anyway?

All you know with any certainty is that your mass estimates are wrong. You have no evidence that any of that is related to exotic forms of matter.

So, Michael, if EU/PC is able to do away with CMD, why not show us explicitly how that works. Something real that we can discuss, a paper, a book, with explicit pagenumbers etc. to show us where what is written. Let's get this into a real discussion without elves and fairies etc. preferably in a new thread.

 

[Reality Check]

Outstanding questions for Micheal Mozina

Any problems with this analysis of the evidence for nonbaryonic matter?
First asked 18 July 2009 and asked again 19th May 2010

This question was first stated as an example of the hypocrisy of MM's belief that only things that can be seen in a lab exist. But maybe he has an answer:
Does Michael Mozina believe that stars exist?
20th May 2010

And now he is going on about his delusions about Birkland's work.

This is totally irrelevant to the Lambda-CDM model and this thread.

However it is appropriate to list MM's lies and misinterpretations about Birkeland's book from this post (Micheal Mozina's iron crust has been totally debunked! ) in the Iron Sun thread:

An honest person would just say "I was wrong - Birkeland did not write that" in answer to most of these.

1. Where is the the solar wind and the appropriate math in Birkeland's book?
2. Please cite where in his book Birkeland identified fission as the "original current source"
3. Please cite where in his book Birkeland identified a discharge process between the Sun's surface and the heliosphere (about 10 billion kilometers from the Sun).
4. Is Saturn the Sun?
5. Question about "streams of electrons" for Micheal Mozina
6. Citation for Birkeland's prediction for the speed of the solar wind
   First asked 28 December 2009
7. Where is the solar model that predicts the SDO images in Birkeland's book? (really a follow on to questions dating from July 2009)
8. Are galaxies electrical discharges from magnetized iron spheres (Birkelands "nebulae model")?
9. Where in Birkeland's book does he state that the Sun is a metal globe?
10. Why is the iron crust iron and not Birkeland's brass?

 

[GeeMack]

An honest person would just say "I was wrong - Birkeland did not write that" [...]

Well there's your problem right there.

 

[ben m]

So it should be called the "Lambda-CDM *HYPOTHESIS*", right?

I've called it a hypothesis 10 or 20 times already. Every time I've pointed out that the epistemological status of the Cosmological Constant is exactly the same as the status of the top quark, of General Relativity, of quantum mechanics, etc.

What was wrong with the previous 19 times I said this, Michael? What was special about this time? If you can explain to me how to get past your Ignore Everything Filter, these threads will be a lot more productive.