Illuminating dark matter

[Lloyd]

FALSIFIED WMAP DATA

Nereid said: To claim falsification of data is an extremely serious charge in astronomy!
- There's nothing in any of the papers you cited which constitutes such a claim (if there is, I must have missed it; can you point it out please?).
- May I ask if it is you who is making this claim, not Robitaille?

* I was quoting "someone" who isn't me and isn't Robitaille. He's a knowledgeable associate of mine. I guess I should ask him where to find the evidence of falsifying of data. I assumed it was in the Robitaille links, which I only skimmed briefly. By the way are you unaware that falsification of data is common in science, because it's profitable? Take global warming data for example. And black hole, neutron star, dark matter data ad infinitum.
* I just did a search myself and found this paper apparently indicating WMAP fraud, which I haven't had time to read: http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.0524 and I found this commentary, which I only read in part: http://dreamheron.wordpress.com/2010/07 ... lite-fraud.
WMAP COORDINATES AT LAST
* And what do you know? Another associate of mine found WMAP coordinates for me, so I'll post her info below. I don't know why the coordinates are not usually included with images. I guess I should have asked for COBE coordinates, instead of WMAP, since COBE is much more detailed.
* The following image from NASA is said to be: "A guide to the microwave sky for reference. This picture shows the large-scale emission from the Milky Way galaxy, including some of its notable components such as the Cygnus complex, the North Polar Spur, the Gum region, etc. The small circles show positions of the microwave point sources detected by WMAP (Bennett et al. 2003c). The brighter sources are labeled for reference."
* Here's the link to this reference image:
http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/map ... _ppt_M.png
* And here's the link to the page where both the image links and the above quoted explanation can be found:
http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/map ... images.cfm
* According to the material on the above linked page, all the WMAP images are in "a Mollweide projection in Galactic coordinates." Here's the link to an ESA web page that shows a similar image for the Planck probe, with the galactic coordinate lines superimposed: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object ... ctid=46740
* And here's another link to a page of WMAP images:
http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/map ... images.cfm
* She said to check out Figure 14 on the above linked page; it shows the polarization masks in galactic coordinates.

[Nereid]

So they already decided what they were looking for in the data.

I don't know how you came to this conclusion; after all the CMB was discovered long before the WMAP team was formed.

Did you know that the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Penzias and Wilson? "for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation"!

I'm not sure why anyone would want their theories to agree with anything that comes from this.

I welcome you to join the discussion in this thread; I very much look forward to reading your posts!

[Aardwolf]

So they already decided what they were looking for in the data.

I don't know how you came to this conclusion; after all the CMB was discovered long before the WMAP team was formed.

Did you know that the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Penzias and Wilson? "for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation"!

I'm not sure why anyone would want their theories to agree with anything that comes from this.

I welcome you to join the discussion in this thread; I very much look forward to reading your posts!

No they discovered microwave interference and the establishment decided that it must be from the big bang. Then WMAP is charged with proving this to be true, which it did after making adjustments to the data. Surprise surprise. It should have had an unbiased target of finding the source of the microwaves. Science would be better for it. Shame.

[Lloyd]

INSIDER'S VIEW ON WMAP ETC.
* Ralph is an engineer who worked on the WMAP satellite. He said I could quote him. He said as follows in a recent discussion about that. [Underlining and brackets are mine - Lloyd.]

- [T]he big problem was the temperature of the 4K reference body. Although I can confirm that the baseplate is maintained at 4K, I cannot say with any degree of accuracy at what temperature the reference body (bodies) are.
- You [another associate] mention that the mirrors are exposed to 300K, it was this point that I do not agree with. The mirrors are not exposed to 300K other tha[n] a very long, shielded conducting path. Radiatively, the mirrors see, at most, the 50K heat shield.
- I also wanted to point out that I am not a scientist on Planck (although a Physicist by education), rather an engineer involved with operating the spacecraft not involved with the science at all (other than to ensure that the instruments are working as expected). I have also mentioned (very quietly) that Planck is worthless, as I agree with the hypothesis that the background radiation that they see, and I do believe that they see something although I may be wrong, is from the local extragalactic area, as opposed to the remnants of the 'Big Bang'.
- I dislike the idea that the CMB is an earth-bound effect, since the data from Planck is similar in aspect to that from COBE, which was simlar to WMAP (I think [:-/] ) Unfortunately I do not have much time reading all of Robitaille's work (although I have saved it for later perusal) but I will look into it! A quick read through some of his work shows that he talks about the theoretical and practical limitations of a reference. But I am unsure as to how this compares with the fact that there was lots of ground testing involved to verify that the references DID act as blackbodies.
- How the limits and the testing relate to each other (do limitations remain or were they taken into account in the design, or compensated due to ground testing[?]) I do not know, but it is definitely something to look into.
- The other thing is that they do not have to be blackbodies - only appear to be blackbodies in the required frequencies! Cheers Ralph

[Biggins]

Actually I worked on the operations for the Planck spacecraft, not WMAP (and I still work on Herschel!)

Ralph
Edit: thanks for the spelling corrections, BTW

[Lloyd]

* Ralph, do you do your work on Herschel etc in Germany? This webpage http://www.linkedin.com/in/biggins says you work at Frankfurt am Main. A German cousin of mine lives not far from there. He used to do high-tech work too. I think some of his family do also.
* It looks like you're a member of The Space Movement. Their pitch is:

There are dozens of Space Groups but only one Space Movement. The Space Movement is what is shared by all who believe that Humanity must expand beyond the limits of Earth, that the solar system can and must be settled, that all humanity will benefit.

* At http://thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/v ... 732#p43732 I asked Cardona:

Do you think it would be neat if humans could siphon off a lot of Venus' atmosphere and move a bunch of it to Mars and crash an icy moon or asteroid onto Venus to cool it off and make both planets habitable?

* What do you think about that, Ralph?
* I just started a discussion of this at http://thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/v ... =10&t=4003, so maybe that's the best place to reply.

[Biggins]

Lloyd,
Yes I work at ESOC in Darmstadt. See http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Operations/ ... MRE_0.html for more info...
I'm already a member of the Space Movement

[jjohnson]

Here is a link to a paper on a problematic time asynchrony regarding CMB and WMAP data:
Diagnosing Timing Error in WMAP Data, by Hao Liu,Shao-lin Xiong & Ti-Pei Li
http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.2701

Also see the earlier The origin of the WMAP quadrapole by the same authors:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.1073

Note that these are identified as system errors, not falsification of data.

Jim

[Aardwolf]

I don't believe there is any fraud associated with the data, I just believe they are mining for a particular signal in the noise. In the same way that GISS mine for their "hockey stick" in temperature data. Both are activiely hunting for something that they "know" is there. So using adjustments they manage to find it.

[Biggins]

Fraud is a very difficult word to use as it requires significant evidence that the data was knowingly manipulated, as opposed to shoddy work or systematic errors.
One thing that is often overlooked is that these spacecraft (WMAP, COBE, Planck) go through extensive testing on-ground. These tests include vacuum chamber and thermal testing where the spacecraft is exposed to conditions similar to that found in space.
Having worked on these projects, I can tell you that the scientists may well interpret the data wrongly, but the data itself is not 'bad'. There may be systematic errors (although not many as most are corrected prior to launch), but then, no experiment is perfect.

Jim's two papers also go a long way to showing that the problems are unintentional. The data processing pipeline is tested, but as with any software, errors may creep in and not be recognised as such especially when there is no other analysis software being used to interpret the raw data.

RalphB

[jjohnson]

Thanks, Ralph. I just wanted to illustrate that in the best conceived experiments and observation missions, it is always possible for errors unintentionally to creep in. No engineer or experiment designer intentionally designs for error; a lot of calculations and discussion and cross-checking and testing protocols go in to such endeavors to assure that as little error creeps in as humanly possible, given the art and science at the time. No one I've heard of intentionally invites being discovered as having "committed fraud".

Where insufficient attention is paid, in my narrow opinion, is to the open-mindedness, or "blank slate" approach to interpretations of the data obtained, assuming that error has been minimized in its production. Things like, "what are all the ways in which we could tackle the interpretation of these data?" [Not just, "what way seems at first glance to be the most acceptable or widely approved way of interpreting them?"]

What are the different analysis programs available? Are they specific to certain types of interpretation, with built-in assumptions or biassed outcomes based on the author's education or proclivity to a viewpoint? Should a different data-mining and processing program (in software, typically) be undertaken in light of some surprising or otherwise difficult-to-explain observation? Questions like these may be difficult in institutionalized agencies. Researchers are teamed, and do not have as many degrees of freedom as might be optimum from a free-exploration point of view. There are time pressures involved to get data and interpretation(s?) of it publicized, to keep the visibility and buzz factor high. Due to specialization, it may be impracticable to "walk down the hall" and talk with a colleague whose discipline may be in an allied but different focus of study, or at a different wavelength band, or even in a completely different field of science altogether.

Not taking a wider view constantly, as a desirable modus operandi, may be efficient, but it is not necessarily going to produce the very desirable result of a better understanding of larger pictures of events and phenomena. It might, but it might not - there's the risk. Assessment of such risk presently appears to have come down in favor of "specialized, narrow viewpoints will speed and improve our understanding the best."

I believe that both methodologies have the potential to yield good results, but that one halves the chances of success (at least!) by ignoring the other's approach and good points. To be critical, my own viewpoint is that the EU ideas are not yet publicly fleshed out sufficiently in the mathematical component of theory to qualify as "possibly plausible" by the directors of mainstream astrophysics today, despite the excellent textbooks and papers available on plasma physics and dusty plasma and plasma crystals. It might be that cosmic plasma ideas are themselves interpreted as "fraudulent" by those research directors for that reason — hence their dismissive attitude. In my observation that is a waste of potentially good avenues of research, but then, I am not in a position to know how such people think and plan their research objectives. I think that they should better educate themselves as widely as possible in the subject they are hoping to discredit and make just "go away", rather than throw stones at its lack of quantitative math (so far, within their selective field of view).

Why doesn't "big science" bring in the "wackos" and "alternative idea" people to help them explore outside the present paradigm, instead of relegating them to unpublished obscurity? Limited budgets or limited thinking?

Jim

[Nereid]

Yet another long, and excellent, post Jim; well done!

To comment, briefly, on just one part ...

Why doesn't "big science" bring in the "wackos" and "alternative idea" people to help them explore outside the present paradigm, instead of relegating them to unpublished obscurity? Limited budgets or limited thinking?

There are, undoubtedly, a great many reasons.

One such reason is likely that "the "wackos" and "alternative idea" people" seem to be (or have been) rather ill-informed of much of the well-established observational and experimental results in the areas of physics/astronomy where their ideas live, and also often ill-equipped to understand even relatively straight-forward implications of their ideas.

Back in 2007 I wrote of my experiences with BAUT's ATM (Against the Mainstream) section over the preceding 18 months (i.e. before the current '30 day rule' was implemented). If the ideas you have in mind are like those which were presented in BAUT's ATM section in that 18 month period, then a huge problem with your implied suggestion is the effort that would be involved in wading through lots of completely hopeless ideas (in terms of their match to empirical reality) to find the <~0.5% which might, just might, have legs.

[Aardwolf]

Yet another long, and excellent, post Jim; well done!

To comment, briefly, on just one part ...

Why doesn't "big science" bring in the "wackos" and "alternative idea" people to help them explore outside the present paradigm, instead of relegating them to unpublished obscurity? Limited budgets or limited thinking?

There are, undoubtedly, a great many reasons.

One such reason is likely that "the "wackos" and "alternative idea" people" seem to be (or have been) rather ill-informed of much of the well-established observational and experimental results in the areas of physics/astronomy where their ideas live, and also often ill-equipped to understand even relatively straight-forward implications of their ideas.

Back in 2007 I wrote of my experiences with BAUT's ATM (Against the Mainstream) section over the preceding 18 months (i.e. before the current '30 day rule' was implemented). If the ideas you have in mind are like those which were presented in BAUT's ATM section in that 18 month period, then a huge problem with your implied suggestion is the effort that would be involved in wading through lots of completely hopeless ideas (in terms of their match to empirical reality) to find the <~0.5% which might, just might, have legs.

BAUT's ATM section is merely a place for the operators to quarantine and reject anything they disagree with and/or dont want to deal with.

[mharratsc]

Regarding the above:

From the perspective of NASA- I can imagine some of the difficulties in "wading through" so many suggestions to find the few 'gems' that might be worth polishing up. It is remeniscent of the DARPA pursuit of a good 'Star Wars' defense system. "Surrounding the world with several billion mirrors" for some odd reason was one that stuck in my head... it also inspired a very funny cartoon about a suggestion to "surround the world in a net of $1 bills" because it would be cheaper than all the other suggestions..

However- the above scenario mentioned by Ms. Nereid of "wading through" all of that stuff leads to situations of 'one bad apple spoiling the whole bushel'- how do you get around this, if you DO have a truly good, viable idea?

You pursue it outside the normal mainstream channels, of course! Much to the chagrin of those whom straddle the informational channels into scientific experiment and peer-review (look at Kristian Birkeland, for example)... what else can you ask someone to do? :\

[Nereid]

I wonder whether a topic for a thread that might get some good discussion going might be "how could "big science" bring in the "wackos" and "alternative idea" people to help them explore outside the present paradigm, instead of relegating them to unpublished obscurity?"

Of course, with just a few minutes' brainstorming any one of us could come up with half a dozen answers!

Perhaps limit the scope of such discussion to 'plausibly feasible', or similar?