Nature of astrophysics (9) - Empiricism, Extrapolation, Etc

[Goldminer]

Halton Arp has blasted that one clear out of the park.

To quote a Thunderbolts Forum member known very well to you, Goldminer, prove it!

I don't have to prove anything. Halton Arp did the work, he proved it. Now, you don't have to accept anything he proved, but that leaves you lying in the dust. Ignorance is bliss. Educated ignorance is detestable.

The "Hubble redshift-distance relationship" is not some immutable law.

Of course it isn't ... and I never said it was (not that what I say has any bearing).

However, it is fully consistent with all relevant objective independently verified astronomical observations (at least as far as I know).

Yes it certainly is consistent, . . . if one ignores all the contrary evidence!

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[Nereid]

I don't have to prove anything. Halton Arp did the work, he proved it.

He did? Can you cite any sources? No, cancel that; can you cite papers he wrote (up to ten, say) which contain what you consider to be that proof?

Now, you don't have to accept anything he proved, but that leaves you lying in the dust. Ignorance is bliss. Educated ignorance is detestable.

I'm somewhat familiar with several dozen of Arp's published papers, perhaps more.

To slightly rephrase something you wrote, Goldminer:

"Mastering" Arp's ideas should not be a process of rote memorisation; central to the mastery should be analysis and critical examination of the subject. Students should be encouraged to come up with alternate explanations, and be given the opportunity to argue as to why their "answer" is wrong. Both the "lecturer" and the students may prosper from the interchange, don't you think?

Any [theory] that needs to be amended to account for accelerated expansion instead of expected decelerating expansion and needs to add 900% of unobservable matter for the observable matter to behave within the limits of theory [should be abandoned].

For now lets ignore any real theories and just discuss hypothetically. In your opinion, would those 2 changes be big enough to cause the abondonment of the theory? If not, hypothetically, what would be big enough?

The things you mention, Aardwolf, are features/outcomes/predictions of a model (or class of models) built from (or based on) a theory (or theories).

Cosmological models, based on GR and some form of the Copernican principle, which contain mass-energy only in the form of photons and 'baryons', have indeed been 'abandoned', for just the reasons you state (they are inconsistent with a lot of relevant astronomical observations).

From a theory point of view, there are several ways you can go; for example (not intended to be a comprehensive list!), you could:
* develop a new theory of gravity (to replace GR)
* modify or abandon the Copernican principle
* add new forms of mass-energy
* some combination of the above.

All these have been done, and there are hundreds of papers on them; check out the "gr-qc" section of arXiv to get an idea of what's going on.

[Aardwolf]

Any [theory] that needs to be amended to account for accelerated expansion instead of expected decelerating expansion and needs to add 900% of unobservable matter for the observable matter to behave within the limits of theory [should be abandoned].

For now lets ignore any real theories and just discuss hypothetically. In your opinion, would those 2 changes be big enough to cause the abondonment of the theory? If not, hypothetically, what would be big enough?

The things you mention, Aardwolf, are features/outcomes/predictions of a model (or class of models) built from (or based on) a theory (or theories).

Cosmological models, based on GR and some form of the Copernican principle, which contain mass-energy only in the form of photons and 'baryons', have indeed been 'abandoned', for just the reasons you state (they are inconsistent with a lot of relevant astronomical observations).

From a theory point of view, there are several ways you can go; for example (not intended to be a comprehensive list!), you could:
* develop a new theory of gravity (to replace GR)
* modify or abandon the Copernican principle
* add new forms of mass-energy
* some combination of the above.

All these have been done, and there are hundreds of papers on them; check out the "gr-qc" section of arXiv to get an idea of what's going on.

I suppose we can only hope that one day you find the courage to actually answer a question directly.

[mharratsc]

Pardon me for intruding, but I would like to interject a few thoughts here, if I may.

Ms. Nereid posted:

Goldminer wrote:

I don't have to prove anything. Halton Arp did the work, he proved it.

He did? Can you cite any sources? No, cancel that; can you cite papers he wrote (up to ten, say) which contain what you consider to be that proof?

Ms. Nereid- Halton Arp is famous for his images of 'quasars' in front of lower redshift galaxies, and bridges of material between celestial objects of differing redshifts.
What this boils down to is whether you believe these images to be proof or not.

Obviously, to Goldminer and many others here, the answer to that question is in the affirmative.


Also, you stated:

"Mastering" Arp's ideas should not be a process of rote memorisation; central to the mastery should be analysis and critical examination of the subject. Students should be encouraged to come up with alternate explanations, and be given the opportunity to argue as to why their "answer" is wrong. Both the "lecturer" and the students may prosper from the interchange, don't you think?

Hightlight and italics mine

I agree with you wholeheartedly, but think you have touched upon the crux of the issue- you've already intimated what seems to be a consensus across the astronomical disciplines:

In essence- "Why bother asking questions when you know you are going to be 'wrong', no matter what?"

Who wants to willingly be made to feel stupid? Best to learn the subject by rote and start earning a paycheck. :\

Lastly, you went on to post:

Cosmological models, based on GR and some form of the Copernican principle, which contain mass-energy only in the form of photons and 'baryons', have indeed been 'abandoned', for just the reasons you state (they are inconsistent with a lot of relevant astronomical observations).

From a theory point of view, there are several ways you can go; for example (not intended to be a comprehensive list!), you could:
* develop a new theory of gravity (to replace GR)
* modify or abandon the Copernican principle
* add new forms of mass-energy
* some combination of the above.

All these have been done, and there are hundreds of papers on them; check out the "gr-qc" section of arXiv to get an idea of what's going on.

Additionally, you could attempt to model the Universe and our observations from it by applying plasma dynamics, which also is being done.
However- there seems to be so much antipathy from the 'Standard Model' community that it has only been recently that any papers regarding the subject have even made it through peer-review to publishing in mainstream channels... hence their preponderance in the IEEE channels.

Obviously, one couldn't state (without completely losing all credibility) that ALL the papers failed upon scientific merit, especially considering recent observations of the electrodynamic environment of the Sun, the gas giants and their satellites, and the comets as well.

I make the above with absolutely no authority, mind you- so please don't ask me to provide any 'relevant quotes." If you do, I will quote myself and you will give me a big ego.

I will make this concise summation of my opinion regarding this, however:

There have been too many confirmatory observations to discount either the PC model or the EU model in their entirely, nor justify the 'fun little label' Standard Model proponents love to throw on anything touching on EU/PC topics... one which even Physicist used on occasion- "pseudoscience."

You look at some of those papers that Solrey has linked, and you just see if you can find 'pseudoscience' in them...

[Nereid]

Pardon me for intruding, but I would like to interject a few thoughts here, if I may.

Ms. Nereid posted:

Goldminer wrote:

I don't have to prove anything. Halton Arp did the work, he proved it.

He did? Can you cite any sources? No, cancel that; can you cite papers he wrote (up to ten, say) which contain what you consider to be that proof?

Ms. Nereid- Halton Arp is famous for his images of 'quasars' in front of lower redshift galaxies, and bridges of material between celestial objects of differing redshifts.

He is?

Other than Galianni et al. (2005), Figure 4 in which is, I guess, what you're referring to by "images of 'quasars' in front of lower redshift galaxies" (this paper has been discussed, somewhat, here in this forum), what papers - up to ten, say - can you cite where he reports such things?

What this boils down to is whether you believe these images to be proof or not.

Of all Thunderbolts forum members, I must say you're among the last I'd've expected to say such a thing!

By this are you saying that, in astronomy, 'proof' consists of simply subjective visual inspection of images? Whatever happened to photometry, spectra, to quantitative analyses?

Obviously, to Goldminer and many others here, the answer to that question is in the affirmative.

What about you?

Also, you stated:

"Mastering" Arp's ideas should not be a process of rote memorisation; central to the mastery should be analysis and critical examination of the subject. Students should be encouraged to come up with alternate explanations, and be given the opportunity to argue as to why their "answer" is wrong. Both the "lecturer" and the students may prosper from the interchange, don't you think?

Hightlight and italics mine

I agree with you wholeheartedly, but think you have touched upon the crux of the issue- you've already intimated what seems to be a consensus across the astronomical disciplines:

In essence- "Why bother asking questions when you know you are going to be 'wrong', no matter what?"

May I ask how you formed such an opinion?

For example, is this what you found when you began your studies in an astronomy PhD programme?

Who wants to willingly be made to feel stupid? Best to learn the subject by rote and start earning a paycheck. :\

Lastly, you went on to post:

Cosmological models, based on GR and some form of the Copernican principle, which contain mass-energy only in the form of photons and 'baryons', have indeed been 'abandoned', for just the reasons you state (they are inconsistent with a lot of relevant astronomical observations).

From a theory point of view, there are several ways you can go; for example (not intended to be a comprehensive list!), you could:
* develop a new theory of gravity (to replace GR)
* modify or abandon the Copernican principle
* add new forms of mass-energy
* some combination of the above.

All these have been done, and there are hundreds of papers on them; check out the "gr-qc" section of arXiv to get an idea of what's going on.

Additionally, you could attempt to model the Universe and our observations from it by applying plasma dynamics,

Yes, you could.

which also is being done.

Is it?

I mean, Alfvén wrote a paper or two on it, as did Peratt and Lerner; however, no one is doing any work on this today, are they? I mean, work based on plasma physics, a branch of science, and astronomy, which is quantitative.

Can you cite some recent papers reporting such work?

However- there seems to be so much antipathy from the 'Standard Model' community that it has only been recently that any papers regarding the subject have even made it through peer-review to publishing in mainstream channels... hence their preponderance in the IEEE channels.

May I ask how you came to form this opinion?

Obviously, one couldn't state (without completely losing all credibility) that ALL the papers failed upon scientific merit, especially considering recent observations of the electrodynamic environment of the Sun, the gas giants and their satellites, and the comets as well.

And this is relevant to cosmology, how, exactly?

I make the above with absolutely no authority, mind you- so please don't ask me to provide any 'relevant quotes." If you do, I will quote myself and you will give me a big ego.

Apart from asking for some references to relevant papers, all I've asked is how you came to form these opinions.

I will make this concise summation of my opinion regarding this, however:

There have been too many confirmatory observations to discount either the PC model or the EU model in their entirely,

But - and this is a question I've been asking since I started posting here - what is "the PC model"? what is "the EU model"?

As far as I can see, Peratt's is the one and only PC model, and there are no EU models! At least in the sense of objective, quantitative, independently verifiable, published, that sort of thing.

nor justify the 'fun little label' Standard Model proponents love to throw on anything touching on EU/PC topics... one which even Physicist used on occasion- "pseudoscience."

Well, if - apart from Peratt's model - it isn't objective, it can't be independently verified, it isn't published, and it isn't quantitative, don't you think "pseudoscience" would seem to be a reasonable label to give it?

You look at some of those papers that Solrey has linked, and you just see if you can find 'pseudoscience' in them...

Solrey has provided links to a great many papers; however, I don't recall any of them (again, other than those relating to Peratt's model) having anything to do with any PC models or EU models.

Would you be kind enough to remind me which ones you think do?

Finally, I don't recall reading, in any of the dozens of papers by Arp that I've read over the years, any reference to PC models or EU models. In fact, he seems to have been guilty of the great sin of calling what he surely must have known were plasmas 'gas'!

[Jarvamundo]

Ms. Nereid- Halton Arp is famous for his images of 'quasars' in front of lower redshift galaxies, and bridges of material between celestial objects of differing redshifts.

He is?

Finally, I don't recall reading, in any of the dozens of papers by Arp that I've read over the years, any reference to PC models or EU models. In fact, he seems to have been guilty of the great sin of calling what he surely must have known were plasmas 'gas'!

I'd safley say that anyone who has studied Arp's work is well aware of his endorsement of several of PC's fundamental premise, especially those aspects of empirical research related to his ejection hypothesis of galactic formation. So to suggest otherwise appears, yet again a strike of misguided reckless desperation.

[Goldminer]

In spite of Nereid's facile "open-mindedness," her prejudices and agenda are very apparent in this thread, among others. As long as the consensus is with the "Gravity runs the universe," "The Universe is expanding" and "Stars are internally powered," Nereid, using her view of reality, will be attempting to persuade with religious fervor, anyone stopping by.

Here's one more challenge, by Goldminer: "exactly what "problems" are there with that document?"

I have accepted this challenge, in the sense that I will start a thread in the Electric Universe section (or add to an existing one) and discuss why "that document" fails.

I have not seen her "explain" where or why "that document" fails.

This examination of the "CMB," which is pivotal as to whether "microwave background" really has "cosmic" origins, is a conversation killer to the rest of Nereid's arguments. Until we see her refutation of this lucid demonstration of facts, the rest of Nereid's arguments are moot, merely contributing to the background noise.

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