Dark Matter “Centers of Excellence”

[BeAChooser]

There’s so much money now being spent on the search for the dark matter gnome that centers are even being named for the stuff.

For example, there’s the Dark Matter “Center of Excellence” at Melbourne University …

https://www.centredarkmatter.org

That place is so “woke” that they feel it important to proclaim their gay *pride* and acknowledge aborigines on their website.

Just saying ...

[JP Michael]

and acknowledge aborigines on their website.

And how does this make a person worse than normal, as you so cynically imply?

If the Australian indigenous had proper recognition of their autonomous sovereignty as first and original custodians of this land, they would not be currently experiencing vaccine-induced genocide at the hands of our corrupt and wicked governments.

Please refrain from betraying your ignorance if indigenous affairs. You do not understand how much they have suffered and continue to suffer to this day.

[BeAChooser]

And how does this make a person worse than normal, as you so cynically imply?

My comment had nothing to do with whether Australian indigenous people (aborigines) are oppressed and should have their land restored. It's about the FACT that politics seems to enter into EVERYTHING that mainstream astrophysics does these days. There should be nothing to do with politics on the website. The fact there is, just increases my belief that Dark matter research isn't about science. It's about money, power and prestige. There's so much money being wasted on it now that the livelihood of dozens of people at just this one so-called "center" depends on it. And for that reason, the search for it will go on, no matter how much evidence against it's existence they find.

If the Australian indigenous had proper recognition of their autonomous sovereignty as first and original custodians of this land, they would not be currently experiencing vaccine-induced genocide at the hands of our corrupt and wicked governments.

Also, do you think the folks who ordered that notice be put on the website care one iota whether aborigines are being forced to take the vaccine, like everyone else in Australia is now being forced by their Fabian Socialist government? Do you really think "recognition" of their sovereinty is going to be affected by such a notice? I rather doubt it in both cases. The ONLY thing that matters to the people in control of the site is placating the opposition to any potential funding of their search for gnomes ... and their acquisition of money, power and prestige.

[BeAChooser]

They are even creating plays about their favorite gnome ... as a way of indoctrinating “belief” in the public.

https://news.fnal.gov/2021/10/dark-matt ... even-acts/

Dark Matter: A play in seven acts

Follow the story of dark matter from the Big Bang to the death of the universe. Each act will feature a different point in the history of dark matter, from its creation, to its discovery, to its role in the ultimate end of our universe. Daniel Bauer and his colleagues will weave these events into a compelling narrative, using stunning visuals, animation and current data.

THAT is your government (this is a Fermi Lab production) at work. And look at all the folks who along with Dan Bauer are dependent on Dark Matter to pay their mortgages, put food on the table, pay for that nice vacation they’ve got planned, put their kids through college, etc? http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~tsaab/current_ ... an.png.jpg. And that’s at just one dark matter detection project … the Soudan mine in Minnesota. The search is literally costing billions and billions of dollars now.

[BeAChooser]

Of course, one the primary ways of indoctrinating belief in the public is through books.

So look at this list of the top physics books for 2021 …

https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/articl ... ks-of-2021

And what do they thinks important, at least when it comes to discussing dark matter?

I quote:

Several notable titles include explorations of what it’s like to be a woman in science, to be Black in science, or to live at the intersection of the two.

Nothing about physics there, is there.

Here's two of the three on dark matter in the list …

The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, & Dreams Deferred, by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of New Hampshire Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is “one of fewer than 100 Black American women to earn a PhD from a department of physics.” She writes forthrightly about the experience: “I learned quickly and painfully that physics and math classrooms are not only scenes of cosmology…but also scenes of society, complete with all of the problems that follow society wherever it goes.”

… and another …

Fear of a Black Universe: An Outsider’s Guide to the Future of Physics, by Stephon Alexander
In studying dark matter and dark energy, cosmologist Stephon Alexander (author of The Jazz of Physics) advocates a bold, “outsider” approach. It helps that he has often felt like an outsider himself. As he explains, “Black persons in scientific circles are often met with skepticism about their intellectual abilities, their ability to ‘think like a physicist.’” The book’s title is a play on Public Enemy album Fear of a Black Planet, making it likely the only astrophysics book to contain a blurb by rapper Chuck D. A professor of physics at Brown University and former president of the National Society of Black Physicists, Alexander is also a saxophonist who has released two jazz albums.

Gee ... dark matter doesn't really seem to be the theme in either one.

So … I’ll pass.

The third book is about Vera Rubin ... whose observations unfortunately led to the religion called Dark Matter Gnomism.

But this book *might* be worth reading …

Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate, by Paul Halpern
From the 1940s to the 1960s, the fierce debate over the origin of the universe was personified by the conflict between George Gamow and Fred Hoyle. Gamow trumpeted the idea of a “fiery creation,” whereas Hoyle saw the universe as an eternal steady state. Hoyle derisively nicknamed Gamow’s idea “the Big Bang,” an epithet that eventually became canon. Author Paul Halpern shows sympathy for Hoyle, pointing out that he was overlooked for his work on stars as generators of matter. Author of 17 popular science books (including The Quantum Labyrinth), Halpern is a professor of physics at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.

Except don’t bother. It’s just another defense of the Big Bang.

Better to read this one … even though it’s from 2020 … The Science Delusion: Freeing the Spirit of Enquiry by Rupert Sheldrake. It shows the ways in which science is being constricted by assumptions that have, over the years, hardened into dogmas. It's not on their list. Nor was it in 2020. Just saying.

[BeAChooser]

I want to focus a little more one one of the *top physics books for 2021* ... mentioned above.

https://www.vox.com/22880089/physics-ra ... red-cosmos

A physicist’s lessons about race, power, and the universe

In her book The Disordered Cosmos, Black queer scientist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein argues that physics can be more universal.

… snip …

She’s now an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of New Hampshire, where she studies dark matter and particle physics. She’s also on the core faculty of the university’s Women’s Studies department — a seemingly unusual combination that hints at the multifaceted approach she brings to her work.

As you'll see, "multifaceted" means an astrophysicist (victim?) who clearly has an agenda … or three … or even four ...

In 2021, Prescod-Weinstein published The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, & Dreams Deferred, a wide-ranging book that is both a scientific explainer and an argument that unjust power structures shape the world of physics.

I agree that there's an unjust power structure shaping the world of physics. Just not the one she claims ...

She tells stories of subatomic particles like baryons, which are the building blocks of atoms; she critiques a trend she’s seen, in which writers compare the mystery and invisibility of dark matter to the lived experiences of Black people.

Seriously? This is physics worthy of a top physics book selection in 2021?

And there's a trend where writers are comparing black people to dark matter? Seriously?

In a chapter called “Rape Is Part of This Scientific Story” — a chapter that grew unexpectedly out of her writing on the dark universe, and that she debated including in the book — she writes about how her own experience of sexual assault shaped her understanding of injustices in her field.

Make no mistake … she's got her mind focused like a laser on the physics ... NOT.

[INTERVIEWER:] Early in your book, you write that particle physics continues to teach you that “the universe is always more bizarre and more wonderfully queer than we think.” How do you see queerness in the universe?

Yeah, I think the universe is weird, man! … snip … Queerness is just like that. Queerness is living at that boundary of what is known and unknown. There are certain understandings of queerness that in 2021 seem antiquated. And similarly, there were scientific ideas back in 2000 that we know better than now. We know what the mass of the Higgs [boson] is now. We did not know that in 2000. So I think there’s a real way in which queerness and science track with each other.

Huh? LOL!

[INTERVIEWER:] You write a lot about invisibility — literally, in the case of dark matter, and metaphorically when it comes to the contributions of women, nonbinary folks, and people of color in the field of physics. At one point, you write about physicists who draw a comparison between dark matter and the lived experiences of Black people. Can you talk a bit about that?

I literally have this chapter called “Black People Are Luminous Matter.” I have a very clear agenda there that I wanted to hit home. We’re not magical Negros. We feel pain. We feel pain just as much as white people do, despite a widespread belief from medical students and doctors.

I wanted to look at our physicality, not as a uniform thing but in its breadth. There are a lot of different ways to be Black. But all of them come from baryons, and none of them come from dark matter.

You certainly do have an agenda ... and it's not physics. And it gets worse …

[INTERVIEWER:] How are baryons and dark matter different?

When I say baryons, I mean the stuff that everything we can see is generally made of. When I talk about dark matter, I’m talking about this invisible, transparent thing that seems to dominate galaxy structure. But it’s literally invisible. It doesn’t have a color.

[INTERVIEWER:] Is there a better metaphor to be found in physics?

Yeah, if you really want a cosmic analogy for race and racism, weak gravitational lensing is much more useful.

And worse …

[INTERVIEWER:] You write about the difficulties of joining the field as one of the few Black woman physicists in the country, and the shame you still feel about your B-minus college average. This really spoke to me — I didn’t know cosmology professors have imposter syndrome! How do you keep working through that?

I should say that I don’t actually think I have imposter syndrome. We often tell people that they have imposter syndrome when people are correctly identifying: “Oh, I don’t belong here.” The system is not built for them. And that’s correct. There is some fundamental sense in which you do not belong.

SERIOUSLY? It this the best of the best?

[INTERVIEWER:] Your book ends with a letter to your mother and a section from the Torah. How do your family and your faith fit into your work?

Until I was 10, I thought being Jewish meant you were a labor organizer, because that was the kind of Jewish family I came from. I know it’s super dorky, but it’s also 100 percent what I thought, coming from an organizing family. I think their influences imprinted all over the book. I don’t think I would be a scientist who thinks so deeply about these social questions if I hadn’t been raised to ask all of these questions, and to think expansively about what it means to understand the world. That’s not just a mathematical question. It’s not just a physical question. It is also a social and a political question.

This is what mainstream astrophysics has become???

YES, unfortunately for all of us.