Thunderbolts Forum v3.0

Not exactly brand new news, but...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaouTS072ew

Good video.

I watched this video and got to talking about it there. Now I'm trying to recall where I read an old, obscure, highly detailed document which stated that, before CMB was discovered, only a small percent of the many BB models out there included something like a CMB, and that there were even college course contests for students to come up with BB models. It even went into those contests into great detail.

Does anyone remember something like this, please?

I should add that I'm pretty confident it was a document (or book, or something like that). But until I find the document, I can't shake the nagging little doubt that it might have just been a thought experiment I did to make a point.

Well, anyways, here's the discussion I had there. I don't think I had ever laid the concept of "proximity to evidence" out so fully in my mind before, so it was useful:



Coffeetalk (to @Manoo42): "well, when guys like Roger Penrose start to question the BB, people typically listen."


@Manoo42 (to @Coffeetalk): "Its easy to question an incomplete theory but coming up with something better to replace it hasnt happened yet..."


me (to @Manoo42): "You can make literally any theory fit any evidence, and thus be endlessly infallible, simply by adding enough imaginary mechanism (inference/"prediction", et c.) to that theory as evidence accumulates. For example, geocentrism's math still works perfectly well, and you could add math to it to explain more recent observations as necessary. The only reason we switched to heliocentrism was that improved observational methods helped us notice a math which made heliocentrism require less imaginary mechanism (and thus be simpler) than geocentrism. You could likewise explain more recent observations to fit within flat earth theory by using some perhaps more radical math, maybe things like dimensions and time-space vortexes and what-not. Keep going. Keep going forever...

That is why science requires a genuine competition to be the simplest among fittest theories, why it requires Occam's Razor. If you're not doing that, then you're just doing religion/art/PR.

And Big Bang theories, having unobserved and merely imagined mechanisms such as co-moving coordinates, time before time, space beyond space, dark energy, dark matter, and Einsteinian relativity, are so absurdly far-fetched (inferred so far beyond the evidence) that coming up with simpler theories which fit at least as well is trivial. For example, it could just be that something as yet unobserved about the gravity, density, temperature, and/or pressure of intergalactic space (as distinct from intRAgalactic space, the space within galaxies) makes light lose frequency without scattering as it travels through intergalactic space. Even more specifically, Lyndon Ashmore proposed that the coulomb pressures in intergalactic space are so low that light therein loses frequency without scattering on re-emission. Voila, there's much less unobserved, imagined mechanism in that than in BB theory."


@Manoo42 (to me): "I think you need to look up what a scientific theory actually means...
Theories that predict elements that are subsequently found to be correct are good indications the theory is sound..."


me (to @Manoo42): "The proximity of a theory to evidence over time (in both fitness and simplicity) which you're talking about is a less reliable subset of the competition to be simplest among fittest theory which I'm talking about.

For example, if theory A is simpler than theory B, and they fit equally well, then A automatically ranks higher than B. It simply is in a better rank right where it is, right now. But, if theory A is getting closer to the evidence over time even without being revised, or conversely, is getting further from the evidence over time even with revision, then you might scratch your head and suspect theory A is heading in the right or wrong direction, respectively, and at one rate or another, and more or less so than theory B (depending on theory B's behavior in this regard as well), but that does not necessarily tell you how they will end up relative to each other at any given point in the future in the competition to be simplest among fittest.

And a theory's proximity to evidence over time isn't governed merely by the simple laws of conservation physics, it involves the more complex, less predictable factors of humans who may or may not be more or less diligently trying to discover the unknown world around them.

Now, let's say for example that there had been many BB theories before CMB was discovered, perhaps even university course contests for students to come up with BB theories, and only a small percent of those theories, maybe 25 or less out of 100 or more, had a CMB-like mechanism, but they then publicized the BB theories which had a CMB-like mechanism after CMB was discovered. That might make the larger BB theory set look less impressive and more de facto ad hoc, if you were focused on proximity to evidence over time. But in the end, it wouldn't even matter, because you would still rank those theories first by the fittest and then by the simplest of those fittest, regardless of whatever theory and/or evidence came first.

As it happens I do have a vague recollection that something like the last example above was the case, but I can't find the source for that, so I'll just leave it as a thought example. But I do have the sources indicating that, prior to the discovery of the cosmic microwave background, people were coming up with models of something like a CMB for reasons unrelated to BB theory, and only some of the many BB theories out there included something like a CMB (and even those were quantitatively off by more than non-BB CMB-like theories which existed at the time).

And BB theory's proximity to evidence over time since then has only gotten worse overall compared to simpler theoretical frameworks. For example, unexpectedly low supernova brightness observed in the late 90's had no significant adverse affect on Ashmore's new tired light as far as I can tell, but it did require adding the unobserved bizarre-accelerating-expansion-via-enormous-amounts-of-dark-energy mechanism to BB theories."

The BB theory is sometimes summarized as:
"GIVE US ONE GOOD MIRACLE AND WE CAN EXPLAIN ALL THE REST."
Sorry, I don't believe the miracle; so all the rest is nonsense.
Arguing about all the rest can be a big waste of time; unless you enjoy the challenge.
This is about how I feel these days, not about your efforts.
Jack