Evidence of Gravitational Waves, or Confirmation Bias?

[Michael Mozina]

LOL.
Now they probably are detecting real gravitational waves... caused by Michael Mozina.

Waves generated by their own grave errors, and detected in their spinal cords.
But there is no way they will be reporting these new waves.

LOL.

Somewhere down in those spinal cords of theirs I think that even they know that they jumped the gun. There's just no denying the confirmation bias problem.

I am actually scientifically curious about which h(t) methods originally vetoed GW150914 and why the software did so with "high confidence" no less. I hope they respond to my questions.

To be honest however, I feel a little melancholy about the whole thing. I like GR theory, and I really do hope that gravitational waves exist and that we do one day detect them. I still support the LIGO technology if not their leadership at the moment. I'm still optimistic that perhaps with 3 online detectors that we might be able to detect a real celestial origin of the event and visually verify it.

Without such observational verification however, it's simply a "guess" as to what the real cause of the signal might be. I'm actually a bit sad that I couldn't just be happy for LIGO and for science. Unfortunately however I don't believe that the science is actually on their side.

I definitely don't support LCDM theory, but I do support and appreciate GR theory as Einstein taught it. I'm therefore feeling no joy about any of this.

[comingfrom]

I wonder if they wish didn't report the veto, in the magazine.

I keep remembering Zyxzevn's suggestion, that LIGO could be used to test for gravitational bending effect on light. There must be some good uses for that fantastically expensive equipment and there are still plenty of unsolved physics questions close to home.

Logic tells me, if there are gravitational waves, they have to propagate through the electromagnetic field somehow.
Is there any other medium?

They say ripples in the fabric of space/time, but I can't believe in that cloth.
~Paul

[Zyxzevn]

For fun (I really can not take this stuff too seriously), I downloaded some ligo data.
And made a program to display and filter it.

This is the raw data coming from the LIGO:

click for large version

These is really nothing to see.
The data is the photon pressure on the mirror in the centre, as I understand from the description.

[quote "Ligo tutorial"]
(see link)
The data are dominated by low frequency noise; there is no way to see a signal here, without some signal processing.

There are very low frequency oscillations that are putting the mean of the L1 strain at -2.0e-18 at the time around this event, so it appears offset from the H1 strain. These low frequency oscillations are essentially ignored in LIGO data analysis (see bandpassing, below).

....

The bandpassing cuts off frequency components below around 20 Hz and above 300 Hz.
[/quote]

So I still got some work to do on the filters, the simple filters I use now do not seem to work.
I don't trust the fourier filter in this case, it can add weird transformation in non-linear data.
I'll come back with more data later. Also with higher frequency data.

But by just looking at the raw data, everything looks like a chirp, or something.
It does not give me the impression that this is a very clear signal.
And it is very suspect that a signal is "found" near the common electric grid frequency.

Looking at the signal itself:

I hope to produce a better, more detailed picture after I got the filters working.
If it is really possible.. ha ha

The black line is a complex waveform, which tries to match both signals.
This signal is filtered, shifted in time, and one is inverted.
If we would filter even more frequencies, the signal would be resembling a perfect sinus
(for both red and green). So the filtering makes these signals more similar than
they actually are.

We can see that only significant part of the signal is only a very small part, in
which both the red and green spike a bit.
Notice that both the red and green signal are most of the time NOT following the black path.
The black path is just a crude average. Only a "microsecond" at 0.01, they are on the same path,
for only one period of the signal. Green and red have different amplitudes at 0.00 to 0.01.
So we have to explain very different amplitudes, if we accept this as a real GW signal.

If we look at the rest of the signal, we can see that the red and green follow a different path.
After 0.01 the signal goes on a bit in the same frequency, as if there is not really an end.
This signal does not stop at 0.02. It is the same frequency as around -0.08.
And this is not even the RAW signal, in which this is completely invisible.

At -0.04 the signals of red and green are clearly different, and before that the signals are
still periodic, but completely separate. In this example I can not see the phase-shift so clearly,
at -0.04. But in this picture there is a clear inversion of red and green at -0.06.

So if we look at only the significant part of the signal, compared to the black, we can see that this is
very small and with a lot of noise. And that after we already removed most of the noise
with our filters. This should not happen.

If we remove the black line, we see two different signals that "spike" with different amplitudes,
at about the same time with a frequency of +-0.008 sec (=125Hz).
So I would rather talk about a "spike" instead of a "chirp".
The noise seems a signal of around +-0.01 sec (100Hz) and +-0.005 sec (200Hz).
If both interfere they can easily produce the spike with that frequency.
I wonder if the LIGO scientists actually measured the resonance frequencies in their system.

From the LIGO documentation I can read that their lasers follow a zig-zag path of
around 1120 km, where it goes through the laser again (power recycling).
With c/1120= 268 Hz, we can see that this laser recycling can be causing a continuous noise
signal within the range of what we are measuring. It is close to the +-200Hz already.
If we double the time, we get the frequency of the "spike" signal.
Maybe it was caused by the lasers or mirrors warming up.
(The LIGO was still in a warming up phase).
I hope to see more in the RAW signal.

Even if we assume that the black line is the real signal, it is still different from a real GW signal.
The theorized GW signal has a much longer beginning. If we trace it back we should see a periodic
signal going for seconds.

So, even in the beginning of this RAW data investigation,
the sigma of the GW seems very very overrated.

After some time I will post an update on the filter and maybe new conclusions.

[Michael Mozina]

After reading that paper I listed earlier in the thread, I'm inclined to believe that these events are likely to be power grid related phenomenon. I originally thought it was probably caused by a whistler wave or something higher in the atmosphere, but the way the signal traces to the background fluctuation of the power grid is hard to ignore.

The bottom line is that we really cannot be 100 percent certain of the cause, but there's absolutely *zero* evidence that either signal was related to gravitational waves.

[Michael Mozina]

Jeantate:

I wonder if the author of "Evidence of Gravitational Waves v1.1.pdf" is taking part in Gravity Spy, a Zooniverse crowd sourcing/citizen science project aimed at understanding LIGO's glitches better?

That project's forum (called "Talk") would be a wonderful place to show that the glitch class "chirp" is caused by something atmospherically electric. And also a place to ask questions of experts, re the nature of vetos (or VETOs, or *VETO*s, or ...), and the myriads of sensors etc explicitly designed to capture fields, movements, voltages, vibrations, etc, etc, etc which might correlate with particular glitch classes. Such as those called "Air Compressor (50 Hz)", "Power Line (60 Hz)", "Violin Mode Harmonic", etc. Disclosure: I participate, by classifying and posting.

And I'll end with a shameless plug for Brian Koberlein's One Universe blog post Testing the Electric Universe. Now more than two years' old, and with 444 comments, it demonstrates extremely well that "the Electric Universe" adherents (fanatics, acolytes, fans, ...) have not the slightest interest in actually doing any science. Not even experiments done in laboratories here on Earth.

Funny how you cite Koberlein yet again, perhaps the single *least* ethical astronomer on planet Earth. Note that he had to *ban* everyone that pointed out his *bonehead* (most basic) error about neutrino predictions of electric solar models. You begin by demonstrating your acceptance of *lies* rather than physics.

I certainly notice how not a single one of you have addressed even *one* of the points that I raised in that paper. Why? Cat got your tongue? You'd rather argue about comets forever?

If ever there was an ethical dilemma in physics, LIGO crossed that line big time. They claimed in February that *no* data quality vetoes took place within an hour of the signal in question, but in *March* of that year we found out that they didn't tell us the truth. A "high confidence' data quality veto took place within 18 seconds of that specific signal being uploaded to the GraceDB database and it remained vetoed for 2.5 hours until someone *overrode* the veto! What ever happened to honesty in science? Why weren't the peer reviewers given *honest* information about the events surrounding that signal?

You guys and gals appear to have no ethics. If you did value honesty and integrity in science, you sure as hell wouldn't cite Brian Koberlein as a "source" of truthful information aobut EU/PC theory, and you'd be all over LIGO about that unexplained veto. Why the massive silence?

Oh, right, comets are just so much more interesting........yawn.

Do you people have any ethical boundaries at all? Do you even care about the truth or about physics?

FYI, I did email the appropriate folks at LIGO for information about the conflicting accounts of events, but of course I've had *zero* response. So much for scientific integrity.

[comingfrom]

After ZyxZevn's post there, I'm tending towards believing it wasn't an event at all.
It was simply a manipulation of some white noise data and graphs.

Looking at that graph. That black line is not an average medium, it is a sum,
and it adds about a full unit in size to the spike at 0.00 making it look much more prominent than it is.
If you take the black line away, then you have a big red spike matched to a small green spike.
So these two are not the same wave, by size. Or should I say amplitude?

Seems to be such tenuous evidence.
~Paul

[Michael Mozina]

Selfsim:

Presumably, any hypothesised 60 Hz power grid harmonics would be picked up as 'whistle glitches'? These and are clearly already well-characterized and known. So much for the idea of power harmonics permeating the GW wave detection path undistinguished then eh(?)

For all I know that is *exactly* why the "uncalibrated' version of h(t) *vetoed* the signal with "high confidence" in the first place. How could I rule out anything of the sort without additional information about the original veto?

t the slightest interest in actually doing any science. Not even experiments done in laboratories here on Earth.
Koberlein is an honest and ethical web-science commentator who certainly knows how to weed out pseudoscience nonsense very well.

Bull. If Brian Koberlein was honest and ethical he would have *fixed* his completely *bonehead* neutrino error and he wouldn't have banned everyone that tried to correct his obvious error. Koberlein is a flat out liar. If you people had *any* knowledge of EU/PC theory, or any *ethics* at all you would have busted his chops over that piece of crap article. Instead you all circle the wagons and pretend he didn't *misrepresent* the scientific facts on *purpose* and you go out of you way to cite his full of crap article as being "meaningful" in some way. Give me break! What a complete jerk. What a joke of a "scientist" too. So much for his so called "knowledge" of the subjects that he writes about.

Koberlein is the quintessential poster child of *pure ignorance* on a stick as it relates to EU/PC theory and outright *deceit* in astronomy today. What he can't beat *honestly* and through real physics he simply bashes on *dishonestly* using outright *lies* and "alternative facts"! Who among you EU/PC haters *actually* believes that EU/PC solar models (plural) predict "no neutrinos"? How ignorant are you people anyway?

[Michael Mozina]

Here's the deal Jean....

When you all willingly and publicly condone and support the false statements made about EU/PC theory, while simply turning a blind eye to the *conflicting* accounts of the data quality veto events related to gravitational wave 'discoveries", I cannot help but to question your intellectual and scientific integrity.

For science to progress logically, *honesty* and integrity have to take front and center in any 'debate', and public presentation of ideas and beliefs.

When the extremes in your hater crowd go *out of their way* to misrepresent scientific facts and theories, there is no hope of finding "scientific truth"!

Where's your moral outrage about Koberlein's *public misrepresentation* of scientific theories? Where's your moral outrage over conflicting accounts of events surrounding a supposed "discovery" in physics? Where's your moral outrage when Bridgman publicly misrepresents the published work of Birkeland on his blog with respect to solar wind, and multiple solar models? Hoy Vey.

All the ISF EU/PC hater posse seems to care about is *misrepresenting* EU/PC theory, by falsely proclaiming that EU solar theories predict "no neutrinos", or that all EU concepts of comets claim that comets contain "no water". How is that even an honest portrayal of the facts, without a single quote from anyone in the EU community that ever even made such claims?

I'm really dismayed a how much lack of integrity you folks show towards science in general. Appreciate GR theory as I might, and as open minded as I might be toward discovering gravitational waves as I might be, I simply cannot turn a blind eye to blatant confirmation bias problems in that LIGO paper. As eager as I might be to discover gravitational waves as I might be, I can't turn a blind eye to the conflicting accounts of data quality veto events of that very signal.

How do you ever expect to wean yourself out of the 'dark ages' of physics, if honest debate and real issues are never addressed, and all you ever do is *misrepresent* EU/PC models *plural*, and you turn a blind eye to your own problems in your own claims?

You're so out of touch with empirical physics that you refer to it as a "cult'. How sad is that? Will you simply live your entire life in the dark ages of astronomy, or show some integrity and do the right things?

[Zyxzevn]

After ZyxZevn's post there, I'm tending towards believing it wasn't an event at all.
It was simply a manipulation of some white noise data and graphs.
...

I am not sure whether the signal has really been caused by noise or spike.
But I learned quite a bit on signal processing of stochastic signals.
The scientists involved seemed to have followed standard PhD protocols: "publish or perish".
That means that they did not study the signal analysis properly.

First:
Their system has a energy-loop.
This causes a resonating signal. Either strengthening or reducing.
With non linear effects it can produce side frequencies.
Signals with double or half the frequency of the resonating frequency
are very suspect in my opinion.
This also includes the GW signal as I described in my post above.

This should be a major concern for their data. Looking at their data, it seems already a
major cause of noise. But I still have to study their highest resolution data to see more details.
I think that some LIGO scientists would be happy to know the resonating noise of their system.

Secondly:
I am looking deeper into the Fourier analysis.
The fourier spectrum of a Chirp, their famous signal, is
very similar to a straight frequency line.


That means if you filter out the low and high frequencies of white noise,
as they did, you have a chance of producing a chirp.
It might be good to test what noise can cause such chirps.
I may do that some time later, but I will certainly test out some
different filter settings to test the side effects.

[Michael Mozina]

Jeantate:

Some notes I'd written before on MM's document, misplaced, and found just now.

2. Fuzzy Sigma: The author is, I think, well known for having, um, a troubled relationship with mathematics.

Gee, who would have guessed that you would aovid the topic and cheat at debate by avoiding the topic and loading your response with ad-homs? Oh, ya, *everyone* in the EU/PC community. What a joke considering that five years *later*, I'm *sitll* waiting for you folks to show your missing math, specifically a formula for a non zero rate of "reconnection" in a vacuum. Five frigging years! Talk about mathematically challenged! Until you provide that missing formula, you have no right to attack my math skills. Clinger *cornered* himself with math, and you all simply ignored it.

This is the kind of crap that makes me question your intellecual integrity and your honesty in general.

Where's Cllinger's missing math formula. Give him a hand and show us those superior math skills of yours. Better yet just admit that you folks are *completely clueless* when it comes to plasma physics and the *math* related to plasma physics.

No surprise then that this section came across to me as incoherent. And I really don't want to spend time trying to dissect it in an effort to make it less coherent.

It's perfectly coherent to anyone who *wants* to understand it. The sigma number listed does *not* calculate the likelihood that this signal is in any way related to a gravitational wave. All it does is demonstrate that the signal isn't likely just a random fluke from *typical* (non vetoed) time. It does *not* speak to the likelihood of it having anything to do with gravitational waves, and by itself it doesn't even eliminate ordinary environmental influences as being the source. The whole sigma calculations is "made up" and has no relationship to anything being claimed in the paper about the *source* of the signal. It's a totally *meaningless* and useless number! They just needed a five + sigma number to call it a "discovery" so they whipped up a five sigma number that means *absolutely nothing*!

['quote]3. Elimination Of Known And Identified Environmental Influences: More conspiracy theory than science, methinks. A better approach would have been to write to some LIGO team or other and ask questions about the vetos; starting from the position that there are glaring inconsistencies can only lead to (conspiracy theory) confirmation. Ironically "Confirmation Bias" is the title of section 6.[/quote]

Oh but I *did* write to LIGO about their conflicting account of events but so far no answer. When will I get one? Do you have one? No, of course not. Somehow it's my fault that they can't keep their stories straight about the veto of this specific signal? How is that my fault?

0 for 2 in terms of addressing anything in my paper. Not a great start.

4. Eliminating Blip Transients And Other Probable Non-Vetoed Environmental Causes: Even a few minutes spent at Gravity Spy would be enough for anyone to realize just how irrelevant this section is; Blips do not look like Chirps.

Pure boloney. They even showed one blip transient that "fit" their neutron star/black hole merger models. They certainly do occur in the same frequency range and the same duration range as well as figure 12 clearly demonstrates. Nothing but a handwave. 0 for 3. You suck at this Jean.

5. Confidence from black hole calculations: I cannot understand this section; it seems to have almost nothing to do with its title, and about the same re the work done by the LIGO consortium.

You dont' seem to understand very much. There was *zero* visual confirmation of anything. There is zero support for gravitational waves *without* such a visual confirmation of a celestial event. PERIOD.

[quot]6. Confirmation Bias: This section seems to reflect the author's fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of science (or, in this case, astrophysics).[/quote]

No, it's directly related to the *cheating* that LIGO did with respect to their own claim. In every other instance, they *ruled out* other possible explanations for the same signal based on a *lack* of confirmation in external hardware. When they got to their own claim however, they *ignored* the lack of external corroboration and claimed 'discovery" anyway. They didn't even use their method *consistently*! Every other possible option got "eliminated' based on a lack of any external support. In the *single* case of the gravitational wave claim however, they simply *ignored* their elimination method entirely. They didn't even stick to a *consistent* scientific method! They blatantly cheated in a completely *biased* way!

You've literally dodged every problem I mentioned.

7. Discussion: More of the same.

Same response. The LIGO team *cheated* in their method by not applying it *consistently*. They *eliminated* all other options based on a presumed (measured) lack of external hardware support. They *changed the elimination method* when they got to their own claim however. They have *zero* external evidence that the signal has anything to do with a celestial event, but they *assumed* it did anyway!

I'd be astonished if MM could get this published in a relevant, peer-reviewed journal (in its current form);

Ya, me too. It's way too hot to handle as you response just demonstrated. You ignored all the problems I raised, and you simply handwaved at all of it. You can't handle the criticisms either.

in fact, I would expect most editors to not even pass it on to any such reviewers. The best I think MM could hope for would be a polite letter suggesting certain (rather sweeping) changes.

Ya, evidently I'd have to start by cutting it in half, because they don't give equal time or equal column space to *dissent*. That's why I just chose to post it in it's current form.

One thing that comes through loud and clear in MM's document is a rather extreme lack of understanding of LIGO and how it works. For example, "LIGO reports that both detectors have routinely recorded a signal called a blip transient [...] and which also shares similarities with short burst electrical discharge events in the Earth's atmosphere.[4]". The detectors themselves are extraordinarily well shielded from external environment electromagnetic (and mechanical) signals; glitch classes caused by such external environmental events arise due to one or more couplings with equipment (etc) close to detectors (e.g. the VCOs). And of course equipment inside the facility can couple more easily, as with the ringing telephone!

They specifically stated in their paper that they could *not* isolate the cause of blip transients, and they could not trace them to any particularly auxiliary input channels. They have *no idea* what the real cause of blip transients might be.

Bringing this back to the 444 comments on Brian Koberlein's excellent blog post:

You're continuing to cite the single sleaziest and most ignorant EU/PC critic in the world? Wow. You folks have *zero* ethics. You also have zero knowledge of EU/PC models if you *actually* believe that any EU/PC solar model predicts "no neutrinos". Koberlein didn't even have the scientific decency to *quote anyone* who ever made that claim!

This just shows how little ethics you really have, and what a pitiful understanding of EU/PC theory you have. You're all totally ignorant of the *basics* of EU/PC solar models (plural). That's about par for the course too based on my conversations about "magnetic reconnection" at ISF/JREF. Psst: Magnetic reconnection is not a plasma optional *process*.

I have often said that whatever "the Electric Universe" is, it is not science.

Yes, you repeatedly lie about that point which again simply speaks to your complete lack of professional ethics. Unlike your claims, Birkeland's solar model *works* in the lab Jean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m58-CfVrsN4

Not only is EU/PC theory real science, unlike all your bullshit, it actually works in the lab. I have *never* seen any of you find a single flaw in Alfven's published work, not ever.

That the official EU discussion forum is apparently quite OK with posts expressing overt acceptance of General Relativity (GR), yet instantly and permantently bans anyone calling the EU pseudoscience, is a good illustration of this.

What a bunch of horse manure. You folks completely cheat at debate by attacking *people* rather than ideas. You've banned me more times than I can count at mainstream websites, sometimes without me even attacking mainstream claims. Cosmoquest has an official witch hunt forum, and ISF bans *everyone* that can and does defend themselves. Meanewhile you encourage RC's constant personal attacks there. Talk about pots and kettles.

The fact that you would even refer to empirical physics as "pseudoscience', while peddling four supernatural entities of your own speaks volumes about your lack of ethics and your lack of scientific knowledge. You don't even have a clue about the *basics* because you keep citing Koberlein of all people! That's about as telling as it gets since Koberlein is either willfully clueless about *basic* EU/PC solar models, or he's a pathological liar, and you don't even care that he's clueless or unethical.

As clearly expressed in some of those 444 comments, acceptance of GR is EU heresy,

Yet apparently my acceptance of GR theory here is accepted and nobody has threatened to ban me for my "heresy" unlike mainstream websites.

at least in part because it legitimizes LCDM cosmological models

Bull. That's just another false statement. GR theory does *not* require "space expansion", "inflation", 'dark energy' or exotic matter for it's legitimacy. It doesn't require that all matter condense to a "point" either. It's fine *without* any of that supernatural nonsense you include in LCMD theory.

I do think it's true that some EU/PC advocates reject GR theory because they don't clearly understand the difference between GR theory itself and LCDM. You keep trying to confuse them by trying to ride the coattails of GR theory and trying to draw your "scientific legitimacy" from a "blunder" theory you keep trying to pass off as "GR". That does create confusion and I'm sure it's partially responsible for GR's lack of wider acceptance in the EU/PC community.

(i.e. the Big Bang really did happen, a super-big EU no-no). Internal consistency is not even on the EU radar, and is also notably absent in MM's document.

Pure nonsense. Even Alfven proposed a "bang" theory of sorts, so EU/PC theory would support such an idea as well. It just so happens to work well in a "static' universe too.

The BB didn't happen however. You folks simply *left out* an important interaction between plasma and light. In *real labs* light loses it's momentum to the plasma medium. Only in your fictional universe would light *never* lose momentum to the plasma in spacetime. That's the real reason that most EU/PC proponents reject an expansion explanation for photon redshift.

[Michael Mozina]

Jeantate:

A bit more general background, re GR, "the Electric Universe", etc.

A widespread misconception about GR, one that extends well beyond EU fans, is that the existence (or not) of CDM (cold, dark (non-baryonic) matter) is somehow an observational test of GR, one which it has failed. Phillip Helbig's comment on the recent BackReAction blog post "Is Verlinde’s Emergent Gravity compatible with General Relativity?" (link) is as succinct as can be (it's the one timestamped 5:12 AM, March 15, 2017):

Um, did anyone *within* the EU/PC community or anyone at Thunderbotls make that claim, or just Phillip? Is Phillip even an EU/PC advocate?

That paragraph sounds like smear by association.

I love how GR theory, plus rotation patterns of galaxies is somehow evidence of exotic matter, but all your lab failures of exotic matter don't call GR into question. I can see how *MOND* proponents might use this argument but not EU/PC advocates in general. What else could MOND supporters offer as a refute of GR other than its failure to predict galaxy rotation patterns properly *and* the fact that no form of exotic matter has ever been seen in a lab? Why else would you propose MOND theory to start with? What does that argument have to do with EU/PC theory? EU/PC proponents would probably just agree than any rotational differences were caused by
EM influences that weren't accounted for, not that there was anything wrong with current gravity theory itself.

This really does sound like smear by association.

That EU acolytes do not read primary sources (i.e. papers published in relevant peer-reviewed journals, grad-level textbooks) is well-known.

What a bunch of personal attacks, lies and nonsense. Every single reference I cited in my paper was published in a relevant peer-reviewed journal, and I submitted my peer reviewed journals too. Of course in the case of the LIGO "discovery' paper, the "peer reviewers" weren't even given accurate information about the veto events of that signal. What kind of peer review is that when the peer reviewers were treated like mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed a bunch of bullshit?

The thing that really irks me about your "style" and the debate style of EU haters in general is that they literally make up crap and falsely accuse others. That's another of your less than ethical debate tactics.

For them, PRs, popsci pieces, and YT vids are primary sources; yep, whatever the EU is, it most certainly isn't science.

I love how you cannot and never have found a single scientific or mathematical flaw in any of Alfven's published body of work, or any of Birkeland's work, yet you keep claiming that it' isn't science. You don't even apparently understand that EU/PC solar models do predict solar *neutrinos*, so it's no wonder you think that EU/PC theory is "not science". Your understanding of the theories themselves are "not science", and you blame your own ignorance of the facts on EU/PC proponents. With flat out liars like Koberlein providing you with everything that you seem to think you "know" about EU/PC theory, it's no wonder that you feel that way, but it only reflects your own ignorance of the topic.

An excellent example of this can be found among the 444 comments on Brian Koberlein's Testing the Electric Universe:

There you go again, citing a website (not published) with a *glaring* first error, and you keep acting as though it's a useful or rational critique of EU/PC theory. How bizarre. I think you're all totally ignorant of the basics, and you get all your knowledge about EU/PC theory from *random websites*, not peer reviewed materials. In short, your whole argument is one gigantic projection.

The 444 comments also provide several illustrations of "Cafeteria Science", "Modular Science", and "Pareidola Science", "to describe the methods of an EU zealot" (as sjastro says).

Sure, never mind that I quoted both Scott and Thornill to Koberlain about neutrinos from the sun, you still think Koberlein's FUBAR blog page has some merit, and a bunch of *personal* attacks are some kind of a valid argument.

This is one of the manifestations of the absence of internal consistency in the EU, one of the obvious features which make it not even pseudoscience.

Considering the fact that LIGO *lied* in their published paper, claiming that "no votoes took place withn an hour of the signal", when in fact a data quality veto took place within 18 seconds, with *high confidence* no less, and that veto remained that way for the next 2 and a half hours, those conflicting accounts are "internally inconsistent"" in your mind. Somehow the fact that every *other* potential explanation of the same signal was *rejected* due to a lack of external confirmation but *not* their own claim isn't "internally inconsistent" in your book. You have no right to be throwing stones at anyone about a lack of consistency. That LIGO paper was about as internally inconsistent as it gets, starting with the methodology itself.

It is an approach which I think can be found throughout MM's document, perhaps most prominent in sections 5 and 6.

Boloney. LIGO didn't even apply their own methods *properly* or *consistently* which was the whole point of sections 5 and 6. You didn't even bother to address that consistency problem *at all*! You consistently *run* from it in fact.

Another example: Eddington's calculation showing that, if thermalized, the observable universe's starlight would have a temperature ~the same as that of the CMB. Right ... leave aside truck-loads of other problems with this (irrelevant if you're into Cafeteria Science ), did any EU groupie stop to wonder "if the starlight is thermalized, how come we can still see stars, even at very high redshift?"

Since when did Eddington suggest that the thermalizing of starlight blocked all light from distant suns? What a lame question.

[comingfrom]

For them, PRs, popsci pieces, and YT vids are primary sources; yep, whatever the EU is, it most certainly isn't science.

PR news and popsci is where we source EU?
That is where black holes, big bang, dark matter, gravitational waves, etc, get promoted, not EU.
We post them here to tear them apart and show the inconsistency of the mainstream theories.
(YouTube is different, because anyone can post there, so you can find some EU info there.)

JT is responding to a refutation of a "primary source", the LIGO paper,
and trying to make it seem like the paper wasn't even read.

He has no sound defense, so casts aspersions.

And,
444 comments prove he is right, and EU is pseudoscience?
Every post he mentions the 444 comments on Koberlain's anti EU popsci piece,
as if one needs no more proof than that.
(But there were probably more like 666 comments,
but 222 of them were such soundly worded rebuttals that Koberlain couldn't bear to hear, and deleted.)
~Paul

[Michael Mozina]

He has no sound defense, so casts aspersions.

I thought it was rather amusing and rather telling that JeanTate didn't have a valid refutation of any of the several points that I made. That LIGO paper (citation 2) really is a complete piece of crap and they can't even begin to defend it.

444 comments prove he is right, and EU is pseudoscience?
Every post he mentions the 444 comments on Koberlain's anti EU popsci piece,
as if one needs no more proof than that.
(But there were probably more like 666 comments,
but 222 of them were such soundly worded rebuttals that Koberlain couldn't bear to hear, and deleted.)
~Paul

Don't forget that Koberlein banned at least four EU/PC proponents that all tried to point out his bonehead neutrino error, so there would probably be well over 1000 posts had Koberlein not freaked out and gone all ban happy.

I think it says volumes both about the EU/PC haters lack of ethics and their lack of knowledge of the subject for them to be actively citing a blog entry with a completely *bonehead* error on it. Either they don't know squat about EU/PC theory, or they don't care, or both.

I suspect that they all know that Koberlein lied through his teeth about EU/PC solar models predicting 'no neutrinos", and they simply don't care. Honesty isn't their strong suit apparently. They are simply not capable of having an honest scientific debate. It's all personal attack nonsense, and flat out lies from their side. No EU/PC solar model predicts "no neutrinos".

[Michael Mozina]

For the record, Physics Forums won't even allow me to ask any questions about the two different accounts of data quality veto events surrounding GW150914. Even though I cited only published LIGO references as the Physics Forum requires, and I simply asked questions, they removed the thread entirely without even an explanation as to why they removed it.

This veto topic is evidently *way* too hot to handle. Nobody wants to talk about it, or answer any questions about the LIGO magazine account of this signal being originally vetoed. The mere questioning of the two different data quality veto accounts is evidently "off limits" on some mainstream websites. LIGO has not answered my questions directly, and the mainstream websites won't even talk about it. Wow. I've been a "skeptic" of the mainstream for a long time, but I've never seen anything like this before. I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories, but this behavior is just bizarre.

Nobody wants to discuss the original veto of this signal, nor do they want to discuss why the LIGO group claimed that no veto took place within an hour of the signal in the published paper. What ever happened to ethics in science?

[Michael Mozina]

Selfsim:

Right .. I haven't quite explored the 'Gravity Spy' forum. Harmonics of 60Hz would have a hard time reaching the MHz range anyway. So 'Power Line 60Hz' glitch class it is!

I love these "handwavy' arguments that have no basis in science at all. When you can address the actual paper that I cited with *useful* information about the error(s) in their filtering technique, let me know. As it stands however, it's hard to believe that the "signal" would be completely congruent and perfectly aligned with the normal rising and falling of the background noise related to the electricity grid if they were completely unrelated to one another. Why would the signal "just so happen" to rise and fall in unison with the background noise? Pure coincidence?

Personally I was leaning toward whistler waves as the cause of the signal before reading their paper, but I found their argument more compelling frankly.

Yep .. I agree. Also, (as was explained to MM soo long ago): according to the Berry site, there was a lightning strike over Burkino Faso during the passage of the first GW signal. This 'Schumann resonance' was a thousand times too small to explain the amplitude of the measured h(t). At the time, MM was asserting that a way far weaker atmospheric 'Whistler wave' had affected the detected signal. This would have been even more orders of magnitude smaller again, and would have paled into insignificance in comparison with the eventual h(t) GW detection.

Ya, *except* the h(t) in place at the time rejected the signal with *high confidence* no less. If there was no influence from the things that were being measured for at the time, *why did that rejection occur in the first place*? We got "alternative facts" in the published account which proclaimed (erroneously no less) that *no* data quality vetoes took place within an hour of the event when a data quality veto had actually occurred within 18 seconds! That was simply a *false statement* in a *published* paper. Even the "peer reviewers" were given a snow job.

If the signal actually "paled" in comparison with h(t), why was the signal rejected in the first place with "high confidence"? The fact the signal *was rejected* shoots your whole claim in the foot. Something caused it to be rejected. What was the input that cause the signal to be rejected in the first place?

Even assuming for a moment that a 'Whistler wave' might have been somehow strong enough for detection. Since they are caused by the acceleration of charges in local atmospheric plasma, the wave strength drops off as an inverse cube law. Since there was a time delay of the signal between stations, the source origin was clearly not equidistant to the stations. As local atmospheric disturbances are formed in the Earth’s ionosphere, the wave intensity reaching the stations would have been different (because it was evidently not equidistant), which would have produced different amplitude/intensity readings at each LIGO station (it wasn't).

Since the detectors don't appear to be exactly the same sensitivity, it's not clear how much the intensity may or may not have varied from one detector to another. Signals even bounce around the ionosphere so the location of the signal may play a role in how much the intensity changes too. Whistler waves might be further away from the detectors than a power grid related phenomenon which is why I was originally leaning in that direction.

Its interesting to note also that supposedly 'soundly worded deleted rebuttals' were clearly not deleted by Koberlein (if these were composed by MM and his cohorts). I would suggest that Brian probably left theirs standing because they demonstrated the amateurishness of the EU thinking (which I guess also supports his overall blog thread theme).

Koberlein's policy is to delete or alter the odd comment, if offensive. Even if a poster is banned, (ie: MM), their posts still remain, probably as a testimony as to why they were banned in the first place!

Ok, I'll bite. Why *specifically* did Koberlein ban me in the first place? All I did was do exactly the same thing that three previous EU/PC proponents had done, specifically point out his *bonehead* error about neutrino predictions by quoting both Thornhill and Scott who both predicted neutrinos from the sun. For my efforts at educating Koberlein, I suffered the same fate as the first three people that tried to explain his error to him. He banned us all, and left his error there anyway.

The fact you folks even keep citing Koberlein as an "expert" on EU/PC theory shows that A) you're either ignorant as hell about EU/PC solar models (plural) and/or B) you don't care about integrity or honesty at all. Koberlein could not even quote *anyone* who ever made the claim that EU theory predicts "no neutrinos". He lamely tried to blame Findlay who never once mentioned the term "neutrino" in that PDF file. You guys do not even care about honesty, so why should I trust any of you? Are you *really* so ignorant as to believe that EU/PC solar models predict "no neutrinos"? If so, where's your quote to support your claim? How ignorant are you, and how *honest* are you?

Face it, Brian Koberlein is a liar and a thug. The fact you folks keep citing him as a reference just shows your complete ignorance of the whole EU/PC topic and it demonstrates your scientific incompetence. How could you even be so ignorant as to believe that EU/PC solar models predict "no neutrinos"? Are you *really* that incompetent? Really?

As was explained to MM in our ridiculously long CRUS GW thread, the 'sigma' relates to statistical background noise in the absence of any extraneous noise including the GW signal itself.

That's just it however. That sigma figure means *absolutely nothing* with respect to the *cause* of the signal. It does not eliminate *non vetoed* events as the cause of the signal, and since the vetoed times were removed from the test set, it doesn't even eliminate environmental factors as the potential cause. At *best* case all that figure demonstrates is that the signal is probably a "real" event, but it absolutely doesn't demonstrate that gravitational waves were the actual cause. Its a completely meaningless number in virtually every respect, and *totally meaningless* as it relates to 'cause'.