# New math suggests that black holes don't exist



## Chordalrock

http://www.geek.com/science/new-study-claims-black-holes-are-mathematically-impossible-1605320/

I like how the writer of this article goes to great pains to divert attention from the fact that this would mean thousands of highly respected physicists turned out to be incompetent hacks living on tax payer money by pretending to be smart people.


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## musicrom

I don't pretend to be an expert on the topic, but I did read about this and also watched a video where the person who proved that talks about it. I think what the math shows is that black holes might not be the traditional black holes as we think of them, with the singularity and whatnot, because the stars can't collapse completely into a single point due to something about radiation that I don't quite understand, but rather would have to collapse to a certain size. Our observations of black holes would be pretty much the same, except her proof would solve the loss of information paradox.

Once again, I can't say anything about the validity of this, but it seems perhaps plausible to me.

_(EDIT: I just wanted to add that I never understood how singularities could be physically possible, and always thought they were just a mathematical construct. I've never been taught anything about this kind of stuff though, so it's more speculation on my part. My acceptance of Mersini-Houghton's proof might be at least partially due to confirmation bias.)_


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## Blake

Where's aleazk at? We need an educated point of view. I wonder if this is just rubbish, or if it actually contains some weight.


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## aleazk

Vesuvius said:


> Where's aleazk at? We need an educated point of view. I wonder if this is just rubbish, or if it actually contains some weight.


From time to time, claims like this are published. In the usual picture, black holes evaporate after some millions of years, and this supposedly leads to paradoxes about pure quantum states evolving to mixed states, thing which is not allowed by the standard formalism of quantum mechanics. This is Hawking's famous, and old, 'Black hole information paradox'. Some people pretend to solve this paradox in the most extreme way by saying that 'perhaps black holes can't form then'. But the interpretations of the phenomena that lead to the 'paradox' are questionable, and also the experimental astrophysical evidence strongly suggest that black holes do exist.

As usual, they took a paper in the early stages of the publishing-debate process (it hasn't even been peer reviewed yet) and published the 'finding' with a preposterous title.

First of all, there's no 'new math' in this. All of the methods used were developed in the 1970s and are very well understood today. Second, 'black holes are mathematically impossible' is a misleading comment. Black holes are accepted solutions of Einstein's field equations of general relativity. When I took _General Relativity I_, some years ago, we _mathematically_ derived the Schwarzschild solution, which is a spherically symmetric black hole, and there's nothing extraordinary in that derivation. So, black holes are indeed 'mathematically' possible.

The important question is if there's any actual physical process, in the actual physical reality, that could allow the emergence of that solution in the real world. The standard answer is 'yes'. When a star exhausts its nuclear fuel, it starts to contract since there's no nuclear heat in order to generate ideal gas pressure to counteract gravity. If the mass of the star is small enough (three solar masses or less), there are some quantum mechanisms that stabilize the collapse and the star ends in a stable compact remnant which can either be a white dwarf or a neutron star. If the mass is bigger than this limit, nothing can prevent the collapse and as the star (its nucleus, actually) collapses, an event horizon is formed when the radius of the collapsing matter becomes smaller than 2GM/c^2. In this way, a black hole is formed and after this a singularity in 'the interior'.

The people in this paper want to show that there's something wrong with this collapse picture, that something prevents the collapse and the formation of the event horizon. So, the correct title would be 'theoretical demonstration that black holes can't be formed by the process of stellar collapse'.

The argument presented is that in such process, Hawking radiation would be emitted (this radiation comes from a process in which particles are created spontaneously because of the dynamical curvature of the spacetime, it's the prediction of a semiclassical theory of gravity called 'quantum field theory in curved spacetime', from the 70s), and since this radiation carries away energy from the system, this will drastically alter the collapse, presumably preventing the formation of the horizon.

This is a very old idea that has been investigated many times, and has been rejected in general terms by prominent physicists like Unruh (which is, precisely, one of the guys who clarified some aspects of this radiation in the 70s). If that's not enough, a paper by Padmanabhan from 2009 investigated the phenomenon in a very detailed way, and the conclusion there was that black holes do form, that the radiation can't prevent the collapse.

I read this new paper, and there seems to be a mistake in the way in which the radiation is treated. I also read some blogs by other physicists and they also mention the same mistake. That would explain the discrepancy with the previous 2009 reference paper.


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## Piwikiwi

Chordalrock said:


> I like how the writer of this article goes to great pains to divert attention from the fact that this would mean thousands of highly respected physicists turned out to be incompetent hacks living on tax payer money by pretending to be smart people.


You can't be serious right? So the atomic bomb/energy, mri scanners, particle accelerators, working gps(which only work because they take time dilation into account) and radiation therapy for cancer are all things which are made up and not real life implementations of the work done by physicists?


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## Chordalrock

Piwikiwi said:


> You can't be serious right? So the atomic bomb/energy, mri scanners, particle accelerators, working gps(which only work because they take time dilation into account) and radiation therapy for cancer are all things which are made up and not real life implementations of the work done by physicists?


You mean work done by a handful of geniuses, of course? What are the rest of the thousands upon thousands of physicists doing?


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> You mean work done by a handful of geniuses, of course? What are the rest of the thousands upon thousands of physicists doing?


I myself am a scientist (not a physicist, though), and have plenty of criticism for my field, but this line of reasoning is rather absurd. Can you predict which scientists will become geniuses? Can anyone? Einstein started as a patent clerk. You seem to go on the assumption that he was immediately recognized as a genius. Quite honestly, most of the work of "geniuses" takes time to be analyzed, tested, verified, before it is recognized as such. In the meantime, yes, you fund a lot of people who won't leave huge marks in their fields. Still, even if their work is not ground-breaking, a lot of it steadily moves their respective fields forward. Perhaps not all in leaps and bounds, but significantly. And given how little research actually gets funded, there is a lot of scrutiny that goes into determining who gets money.

So if you have the ability to identify nascent geniuses, please help us out and point them out. But even so, not all scientific research is performed by the geniuses. They make the big discoveries, perhaps, but there is still a lot of what is now accepted science that came, not from the geniuses, but from those of us not quite so gifted, but nevertheless effective.


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## Guest

I'm always leery of the scientific "discoveries" that forego the peer-review process and head to the newspapers first. Peer-review may not be infallible, but it is the best method we have for weeding out junk science. And the cautions in the article are correct - the math may very well be spot on - but what is perhaps more critical are the assumptions underlying the math. I don't pretend to have any expertise in physics. But I know how science is supposed to be done - and publicizing abroad your data as accepted before others have had a chance to look over your data and methods for potential flaws is not how you do it.


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## mmsbls

Chordalrock said:


> You mean work done by a handful of geniuses, of course? What are the rest of the thousands upon thousands of physicists doing?


I'm not sure if you meant this as a real question. The overwhelming number of physicists work in industry helping develop a very wide range of commercial products such as MRI scanners, radiation therapy, GPS systems, and many others. The vast majority of those are not what I would call geniuses.


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## Piwikiwi

Chordalrock said:


> You mean work done by a handful of geniuses, of course? What are the rest of the thousands upon thousands of physicists doing?


Doing scientific research


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## Chordalrock

mmsbls said:


> I'm not sure if you meant this as a real question. The overwhelming number of physicists work in industry helping develop a very wide range of commercial products such as MRI scanners, radiation therapy, GPS systems, and many others. The vast majority of those are not what I would call geniuses.


And here I thought such work was done by engineers, sometimes based on known physics, and often not based on anything much but experimentation.


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> And here I thought such work was done by engineers, sometimes based on known physics, and often not based on anything much but experimentation.


What do you think science is, if not experimentation? Developing hypotheses is only part of the work - you then have to test hypotheses - through experimentation. Engineers do work as well. One does not duplicate the other. Engineers, though, are often the recipients of the knowledge derived by the physicists. They aren't competing fields, but complementary ones. Just as medical science and medical practice work together.

True - much of the grunt work in science is not glamorous, and won't get you frontpage recognition. But it is critical, nonetheless. Hell, by this logic, we should be asking why we even bothered to keep the compositions of any but the true geniuses of classical music. Why do we have the works of any baroque composers beyond Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi? For the romantic period, we should jettison all but, perhaps, Brahms, Dvorak, and Wagner.


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## Chordalrock

DrMike said:


> What do you think science is, if not experimentation? Developing hypotheses is only part of the work - you then have to test hypotheses - through experimentation. Engineers do work as well. One does not duplicate the other. Engineers, though, are often the recipients of the knowledge derived by the physicists. They aren't competing fields, but complementary ones. Just as medical science and medical practice work together.
> 
> True - much of the grunt work in science is not glamorous, and won't get you frontpage recognition. But it is critical, nonetheless. Hell, by this logic, we should be asking why we even bothered to keep the compositions of any but the true geniuses of classical music. Why do we have the works of any baroque composers beyond Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi? For the romantic period, we should jettison all but, perhaps, Brahms, Dvorak, and Wagner.


My reading of the history of innovation suggests that scientists usually play no part in it, or only a distant vague part. The work is done by engineers, the scientists often misleading or retarding progress with their dogma rather than inspiring it.


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> My reading of the history of innovation suggests that scientists usually play no part in it, or only a distant vague part. The work is done by engineers, the scientists often misleading or retarding progress with their dogma rather than inspiring it.


I would be curious as to what history books you have been reading, for that is a rather sweeping statement. Do we have specific examples? In the area we are here discussing - black holes and such - I'm not aware of any contributions by engineers. Perhaps someone knows better. As I understand it, engineers apply principles that have already been discovered and described. As an example, we could talk about the ability of space travel, which is fueled in a large part by the rockets and shuttles constructed by engineers. But before such things could be made, there first had to be an understanding of various things, such as gravity, etc., which knowledge came from physicists.

Engineers may very well be more gifted at applying principles of physics to practical matters, but they are not as skilled at first defining and characterizing those principles. That is not a knock on engineers - that simply is not the way they are trained.


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## Chordalrock

DrMike said:


> I would be curious as to what history books you have been reading, for that is a rather sweeping statement. Do we have specific examples? In the area we are here discussing - black holes and such - I'm not aware of any contributions by engineers. Perhaps someone knows better. As I understand it, engineers apply principles that have already been discovered and described. As an example, we could talk about the ability of space travel, which is fueled in a large part by the rockets and shuttles constructed by engineers. But before such things could be made, there first had to be an understanding of various things, such as gravity, etc., which knowledge came from physicists.
> 
> Engineers may very well be more gifted at applying principles of physics to practical matters, but they are not as skilled at first defining and characterizing those principles. That is not a knock on engineers - that simply is not the way they are trained.


I've not read history of science and innovation as separate from the philosophy of science. This in mind - and I know scientists seem to never know anything about the philosophy of science, being more interested in absorbing dogma than really understanding anything - I'd recommend this book:

http://www.amazon.com/What-Thing-Called-Science-Fourth/dp/162466038X/

I haven't read the latest edition but I'd be surprised if it were significantly inferior to what I read. The book is a university level introduction to the topic, and includes relevant examples from history.


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## Chordalrock

P.S. I didn't mean innovation in theoretical science - this obviously isn't what engineers do. I meant actual tangible results in the real world - the domain of engineers historically speaking.


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> I've not read history of science as separate from the philosophy of science. This in mind - and I know scientists seem to never know anything about the philosophy of science, being more interested in absorbing dogma than really understanding anything - I'd recommend this book:
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/What-Thing-Called-Science-Fourth/dp/162466038X/
> 
> I haven't read the latest edition but I'd be surprised if it were significantly inferior to what I read. The book is a university level introduction to the topic, and includes many examples from the history of science.


Well, I've not read that book. Still, it is a curious statement to make, that scientists are much more interested in absorbing dogma than really understanding anything.

Dogma in science is not quite what it is in other areas. Generally, dogma exists in science because so much research has borne it out. And so simply because something new comes along doesn't mean it should be embraced. There are such things as outliers. So yes, if someone introduces something new, something never before observed, something that seems to fly in the face of a large amount of previous discoveries, then the default is to be skeptical. But if it stands up to scrutiny, then in time it is accepted. Immediately accepting new hypotheses without first allowing them to be tested can have disastrous effects.

Furthermore, we are limited to the tools on hand, and to their abilities. There have been numerous things previously accepted that were later discarded as new technology allowed us to explore in ways we had not previously been able to. That isn't absorbing dogma - that is just keeping up with what the majority of the field believes. Everybody loves the romantic story of the brave young scientist who challenges the dogma and gets the intransigent, old fogeys to finally accept their new ideas. But it just doesn't work that way.

But where exactly have engineers been held up by scientists? I think you would be surprised, as well, just how much scientists do know of the philosophy of science. We also know to treat new, one of a kind observations with great skepticism. Not because we are so wed to dogma, but because all the available data might be overwhelmingly opposed to the new observation. Tell me - if you go to the doctor to be treated for a disease, and the doctor gives you the option of the treatment that has been long tested and found to be reasonable effective, or some new, untested treatment that only one other doctor as of yet has been able to see any kind of positive results with, which would you choose? Now, the new treatment may very well be effective, but you just don't know enough about it yet, or even if it is reproducible in someone else's hands, to throw all your faith behind it.


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## Chordalrock

DrMike said:


> Well, I've not read that book. Still, it is a curious statement to make, that scientists are much more interested in absorbing dogma than really understanding anything.
> 
> Dogma in science is not quite what it is in other areas. Generally, dogma exists in science because so much research has borne it out. And so simply because something new comes along doesn't mean it should be embraced. There are such things as outliers. So yes, if someone introduces something new, something never before observed, something that seems to fly in the face of a large amount of previous discoveries, then the default is to be skeptical. But if it stands up to scrutiny, then in time it is accepted. Immediately accepting new hypotheses without first allowing them to be tested can have disastrous effects.


This paragraph reveals exactly why engineers are also the pioneers: they don't stop to convince the scientific community of anything. All they need to convince is the Patent Office.

It's not just me who has complained about dogmatism in science. Max Planck's statements to that effect are well known:

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

Scientific autobiography, 1950, p. 33


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## Ukko

Do you suppose old Max was a bit annoyed about something, and that gave a yellowish tint to his observation?


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> This paragraph reveals exactly why engineers are also the pioneers: they don't stop to convince the scientific community of anything. All they need to convince is the Patent Office.
> 
> It's not just me who has complained about dogmatism in science. Max Planck's statements to that effect are well known:
> 
> "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
> 
> Scientific autobiography, 1950, p. 33


Scientists and engineers have different goals. Scientists aren't necessarily looking to patent something. They are in the field of advancing human knowledge. And that shouldn't be at the whim of the patent office. If an engineer's idea that he has patented ends up being a failure, it doesn't really affect anybody but the engineer, now does it? And nobody is going to let the engineer try out his invention on a large scale until he can prove it works, and it is safe. They didn't let just anybody construct a rocket to launch a human into outer space.

But science is trying to bring our knowledge forward. It shouldn't be too whimsical. Yes, there needs to be openness to new possibilities, but only those successfully proven. Planck's statement is only partly true. Yes, when a new discovery comes along, especially if it disproves some earlier idea, then there will be opposition, especially from those who are convinced of the contrary idea. But if NOBODY accepted the new idea, how exactly does the new generation grow up familiar with it? Because, obviously, enough people are convinced, and so the idea gains traction - quicker, if it is easily tested by others, more slowly if not.

But the biggest proof that Planck's statement is not gospel is the sheer fact that science IS advancing. And that isn't through patents from engineers. New ideas come along, and if they can be proven, they are accepted. The process works. Dogma is dropped if proven wrong - but not just proven in the court of popular opinion, proven with verifiable data.

And again - where have the scientists held up the engineers? In most instances, the scientists are far ahead of the engineers.


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## mmsbls

I think there has been some confusion in terms. The term physicist can mean someone currently practicing the science of physics or someone trained as a physicist. Most people _trained as physicists_ go on to work in industry generally on commercial or near commercial products. Those working _as physicists_ generally are working to extend the theoretical or experimental understanding of the science of physics. There are vastly more experimental physicists than theoretical ones.

The term innovation, I suppose, is more often used for inventions than scientific progress although scientists may use it in both senses. So if one thinks of innovating commercial products, that is likely to be more the field of people working as engineers than people working as physicists.

As DrMike says scientists generally are working much farther ahead than engineers. The engineers use scientific work as a starting point for their output. The reason that the government funds scientific research is that it creates new knowledge that can be used to develop new technology and increase economic output. Without the basic science, engineering would be a very modest field with extremely little to contribute.

Chordalrock: I'm not sure if DrMike's or my posts answer any of your questions. I get the feeling that we're actually talking about different things. Our experience working with scientists and engineers seems so vastly at odds with things you're saying. The progress in science over the past 400 years is staggering. I'm not sure how that could be the case if much of what you say is true.


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## Guest

Science continues on its merry way...new research 'suggests' and 'claims'.

Nothing to see here...move along.


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## Guest

I suspect your life has been made a whole lot nicer by scientific research. It is easy to knock it, based on terminology like "suggests" and "claims." But there isn't a person on here that is not infinitely better off than their ancestors 100 years ago thanks to advances in science.


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## Chordalrock

The disagreement is over how much theory contributes to the inventions made by engineers. To me, theory means nothing if it doesn't inspire applications. My impression is that the relevance of theory to what people call "scientific progress", and what is usually in fact engineering inventions, is greatly exaggerated. When you say science is ahead of engineers, you're kind of making the argument that theory can be definitively proven without being applied successfully. I don't buy that myself. But what's more, you're ignoring thousands of patents that had nothing to do with currently accepted theory while patented. I don't know if that means engineers are actually ahead of scientists, but I'd say it means the two worlds - theory and practice - are never as closely related as the scientific community would like people to believe - for obvious self-serving reasons, since without practical relevance scientists will be seen as not worthy of financial support as you kind of point out yourself.


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## mmsbls

Chordalrock said:


> My impression is that the relevance of theory to what people call "scientific progress", and what is usually in fact engineering inventions, is greatly exaggerated.


In my experience scientists and engineers would not use the term "scientific progress" for inventions, but I understand you are focused on applications.



Chordalrock said:


> When you say science is ahead of engineers, you're kind of making the argument that theory can be definitively proven without being applied successfully. I don't buy that myself. But what's more, you're ignoring thousands of patents that had nothing to do with currently accepted theory while patented.


Theory can never be proven, but I assume you mean experimental verification such that it is accepted within the scientific community. Actually successful applications of a theory would, in general, not be enough to verify a theory although it would clearly help. Scientists test theories much more stringently than a particular application would. And of course, scientists continue to test theories well after they have been conditionally accepted. Since patents can be granted for devices that do not have to work, I think it's better to focus on actual applications.



Chordalrock said:


> I don't know if that means engineers are actually ahead of scientists, but I'd say it means the two worlds - theory and practice - are never as closely related as the scientific community would like people to believe - for obvious self-serving reasons, since without practical relevance scientists will be seen as not worthy of financial support as you kind of point out yourself.


In my experience, practice depends critically on theory _always_. Obviously I'm not familiar with all applications, but I have worked closely with many companies trying to develop new technologies. In every case the technology explicitly depends closely on various scientific theories. In some cases, an application (or patent) will rely on, for example, motors or electronics, but the motors and electronics stem from electromagnetic theory and further developments such as semiconductor physics.

Do you have examples of engineering applications that do not depend on scientific theories?


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## Chordalrock

You should read chapter 13 of the book I recommended.

Here's a relevant but short quotation:



> These were the theories at stake, and the appreciation of Faraday's motor effect was not "theory dependent" in the sense that an appreciation of it depended on the acceptance of or familiarity with some version of one of the rival theories. Within electromagnetism at the time Faraday's motor constituted an experimentally established theory-neutral effect which all electromagnetic theories were obliged to take account of.


Obviously, Faraday knew what a magnet meant and so on, but his innovative work wasn't theory-driven in the sense that would give you any points in this argument.


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## Guest

Are we really arguing that science has no practical value? Or is this merely a pissing contest between "scientists" and "engineers," trying to argue who is more important? They are both important. Yes - you need "engineers" to implement things, to develop practical applications. But it all is based on information more often than not developed by scientists.

I think it is absurd to suggest that neither is necessary. They are complementary. 

Is science sometimes wrong? Absolutely - it is only as good as those conducting the experiments, and the tools they have at the time. Sometimes they get things wrong. But over time, science has made incredible leaps and bounds in our understanding of the world around us, and those discoveries have enabled others to develop new technology to harness that new knowledge in practical ways that can benefit us. In my own particular field, basic scientific research into the immune system allows us to better treat people with infections, or to prevent infections.

The argument is absurd - as is any kind of argument that scientists are mostly useless. Only because most people don't know the regular day-to-day science that slowly and quietly benefits them, without fanfare like what the authors of the study mentioned in the OP are trying to achieve.


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## Guest

DrMike said:


> I suspect your life has been made a whole lot nicer by scientific research. It is easy to knock it, based on terminology like "suggests" and "claims." But there isn't a person on here that is not infinitely better off than their ancestors 100 years ago thanks to advances in science.


Is this a reply to my post?

It's point was to observe that the article cited in the OP need not be fretted over - the existence of black holes is not under threat yet, since the scientific method would require a lot more research to be carried out before anything like a conclusion could be safely drawn. The article is a speculation, nothing more.


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## Chordalrock

DrMike said:


> Are we really arguing that science has no practical value? Or is this merely a pissing contest between "scientists" and "engineers," trying to argue who is more important?


I think idle theorising occupies too many minds that could more usefully do something else. So does expensive experimentation of dubious value such as the multi-billion dollar LHC project.

In addition to that, scientists should just be a lot more relaxed about differing viewpoints and more open minded or they may end up retarding progress rather than stimulating it. Easy to say, I know, but a good start would be to stop being so darn defensive. When science is about your ego then maybe you're not about science.

Experimentation should be as theory-neutral as possible. Failing that, there should be many competing theories, instead of only one or two that are considered "credible" and the rest pushed into marginality and ignored. There's a group of physicists who provide an interesting alternative to modern quantum physics - they mostly draw on electrical engineering and chemistry background and have some interesting insights, but they're completely marginalised by the peer-review system.

This is the same peer review system that is responsible for enforcing the idea that a lack of serotonin in the brain is responsible for depression. For what, thirty years until someone bothered to take a look at the effect of publication bias and poor methodology on these findings? Today it's pretty obvious serotonin has nothing to do with depression.

And this is just one example among what I'm sure is a horde of examples that could be used to argue that the peer review process - rather than weeding out incorrect stuff - is actually there to weed out the correct stuff.

Relevant to the study in the op, I'd bet that there was no big bang and so would Halton Arp - he used to be a respected scientist and disciple of Hubble himself until he dared to point out that red shift didn't mean the universe was expanding. He was fired, his career ruined, and pushed into the margins. This is what scientists do these days as usual. They're not interested in experiments and different points of view, they're interested in learning "facts" and enforcing correct viewpoints. If you think this isn't correct, just try pushing on the walls of your cell and see what happens.



Ukko said:


> Do you suppose old Max was a bit annoyed about something, and that gave a yellowish tint to his observation?


Annoyance usually has a cause, and I don't think that the cause in his case was education system brainwashing but personal experience.


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> This is the same peer review system that is responsible for enforcing the idea that a lack of serotonin in the brain is responsible for depression. For what, thirty years until someone bothered to take a look at the effect of publication bias and poor methodology on these findings? Today it's pretty obvious serotonin has nothing to do with depression.


There's bad science and bad scientists. What's your solution?

This article about serotonin and depression doesn't give the idea that changing views is at all problematic...

http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2010/sep/28/depression-serotonin-neurogenesis


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## Chordalrock

MacLeod said:


> There's bad science and bad scientists. What's your solution?


Obligatory courses on philosophy of science. Maybe also IQ tests and personality tests to weed out the consensus dependent thinkers and those with a frail ego or lot of emotional investment in being respected.

I think for many people it could be difficult to admit even to themselves that their career has been based on nonsense, as you could say has been the case with psychiatrists for fifty years. Those people shouldn't be found in tenured positions or any positions of authority in the fields of science and related fields.

Kind of like how society needs to weed out those with narcissistic personality disorder from politics and finance and law enforcement etc.



MacLeod said:


> This article about serotonin and depression doesn't give the idea that changing views is at all problematic...
> 
> http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2010/sep/28/depression-serotonin-neurogenesis


Now just remember that it took over thirty years for the psychiatric community to catch up.


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> IQ tests and personality tests to weed out the consensus dependent thinkers and those with a frail ego or lot of emotional investment in being respected.
> 
> [...]
> 
> Kind of like how society needs to weed out those with narcissistic personality disorder from politics and finance and law enforcement etc.


You mean, stop humans being humans?


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## Chordalrock

MacLeod said:


> You mean, stop humans being humans?


Believe it or not, there are different personality types and not everyone is suitable for all kinds of work despite, sometimes, appearances to the contrary.

Narcissistic personality disorder affects only a small minority of humans, for example. I'd recall there are actually two kinds, one of them the classic psychopath. Definitely the kind of people you don't want exerting too much control over your life on any level of society, especially the highest.


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> Believe it or not, there are different personality types and not everyone is suitable for all kinds of work despite, sometimes, appearances to the contrary.
> 
> Narcissistic personality disorder affects only a small minority of humans, for example. I'd recall there are actually two kinds, one of them the classic psychopath. Definitely the kind of people you don't want exerting too much control over your life on any level of society, especially the highest.


Definitely. In any walk of life.

This is hardly a cogent critique of science, scientific method or the 'scientific community'.


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## Piwikiwi

MacLeod said:


> Science continues on its merry way...new research 'suggests' and 'claims'.
> 
> Nothing to see here...move along.


Journalists need to fill the science parts of the newspapers somehow. :')


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## Piwikiwi

Chordalrock said:


> I think for many people it could be difficult to admit even to themselves that their career has been based on nonsense, as you could say has been the case with psychiatrists for fifty years. Those people shouldn't be found in tenured positions or any positions of authority in the fields of science and related fields.


You do realize that disproving a accepted theory is about the highest you can achieve as a physicist? Sure people will be biased and will expect certain answers but most scientist would be thrilled to find some radical things.



> Kind of like how society needs to weed out those with narcissistic personality disorder from politics and finance and law enforcement etc.


Is the problem that there are too many people with narcissistic personality disorders in those fields or that those fields require and enhance narcissism in people who work in those fields?


Chordalrock said:


> Believe it or not, there are different personality types and not everyone is suitable for all kinds of work despite, sometimes, appearances to the contrary.
> 
> Narcissistic personality disorder affects only a small minority of humans, for example. I'd recall there are actually two kinds, one of them the classic psychopath. Definitely the kind of people you don't want exerting too much control over your life on any level of society, especially the highest.


That is debatable, sometimes you need a person to make hard decisions and it can be beneficial if a person can do that without being too emotionally effected.


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## Couac Addict

So, Mr. Spock was full of #*@!


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## Guest

MacLeod said:


> Is this a reply to my post?
> 
> It's point was to observe that the article cited in the OP need not be fretted over - the existence of black holes is not under threat yet, since the scientific method would require a lot more research to be carried out before anything like a conclusion could be safely drawn. The article is a speculation, nothing more.


Sorry, I misinterpreted your comment.


----------



## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> I think idle theorising occupies too many minds that could more usefully do something else. So does expensive experimentation of dubious value such as the multi-billion dollar LHC project.
> 
> In addition to that, scientists should just be a lot more relaxed about differing viewpoints and more open minded or they may end up retarding progress rather than stimulating it. Easy to say, I know, but a good start would be to stop being so darn defensive. When science is about your ego then maybe you're not about science.
> 
> Experimentation should be as theory-neutral as possible. Failing that, there should be many competing theories, instead of only one or two that are considered "credible" and the rest pushed into marginality and ignored. There's a group of physicists who provide an interesting alternative to modern quantum physics - they mostly draw on electrical engineering and chemistry background and have some interesting insights, but they're completely marginalised by the peer-review system.
> 
> This is the same peer review system that is responsible for enforcing the idea that a lack of serotonin in the brain is responsible for depression. For what, thirty years until someone bothered to take a look at the effect of publication bias and poor methodology on these findings? Today it's pretty obvious serotonin has nothing to do with depression.
> 
> And this is just one example among what I'm sure is a horde of examples that could be used to argue that the peer review process - rather than weeding out incorrect stuff - is actually there to weed out the correct stuff.
> 
> Relevant to the study in the op, I'd bet that there was no big bang and so would Halton Arp - he used to be a respected scientist and disciple of Hubble himself until he dared to point out that red shift didn't mean the universe was expanding. He was fired, his career ruined, and pushed into the margins. This is what scientists do these days as usual. They're not interested in experiments and different points of view, they're interested in learning "facts" and enforcing correct viewpoints. If you think this isn't correct, just try pushing on the walls of your cell and see what happens.
> 
> Annoyance usually has a cause, and I don't think that the cause in his case was education system brainwashing but personal experience.


Theory - or, more appropriate - hypothesis is at the heart of science. You observe the data, develop a hypothesis, and then test the hypothesis. If the results support the hypothesis, you continue to explore it, asking new questions suggested by the hypothesis. This is, no doubt, what Arp did, since you have some reverence for him. He hypothesized that red shift might be explained by something other than an expanding universe, and sought to test that hypothesis. But I'm confused. By your comments, it seems like someone like Arp is completely useless in your view of science - purely theoretical. After all, his red shift hypothesis didn't lead to any patents. And I'm not sure he was fired - I read that he took early retirement, and spent the rest of his time at the Max Planck Institute. He had stopped submitting proposals, as he didn't believe he needed to explain what he was trying to do. Maybe his hypothesis was not accepted by many in the field for a reason.

Yes - scientists, it turns out, are human, and as such, egos can get involved. What - that is reason to count it all out? The only worthwhile science is the kind that produces cool new gadgets for you? Einstein was a theoretical scientist. Most basic science starts out that way - often because a lot of the initial ideas are untestable given the technology at the time.

No, not all hypotheses are given the same weight. A lot of it depends on whether others can reproduce it, under the same conditions, and whether further testing continues to support the hypothesis. New hypotheses are typically met with some skepticism, particularly if they are "groundbreaking" or fly in the face of what the prevailing thought is. Science isn't necessarily meant to turn on a dime. Do you accept every new notion that comes down the road? I'm willing to bet you don't.

How can you say experimentation should be as theory neutral as possible? You don't do an experiment unless you have some pre-conceived idea of what will happen. You have to think it through. You have to consider the experiment, the best way to ask the question, the best controls for the experiment so that you can properly discern the results. You have to anticipate complications. You have to be prepared for results contrary to what you predict, and consider what they might mean for your hypothesis.

This group of physicists you mention - without naming - what kind of interesting insights do they have? Can they provide evidence to support those insights? Can anybody else verify their results? Anybody can have an "interesting" insight. That doesn't make it true, and doesn't automatically mean it merits funding.

The issue of serotonin was the leading hypothesis. Do you have evidence that it was suppressing other theories? Do you really think nobody was researching other possibilities? Have you done a search of government-funded grants out there? You can do that - it is publicly available. Have you searched the scientific literature? What is your basis for claiming that this theory weeded out correct stuff? Is it just because the main course of treatment for so long was boosting serotonin levels? Maybe - just maybe - nobody has been able to find another explanation that could lead to treatment. And in the meantime, while not perfect, the accepted treatment at the time was still shown to be effective in 60% of treated individuals. Sometimes we have to go with imperfect treatments until we can find something better. That doesn't mean anybody is suppressing anything. You don't think a drug company out there would love to be the first to develop a better drug to treat depression, that acts quicker than current therapies, and has a higher success rate? Hardly.

You haven't proved anybody being suppressed. Arp was not fired, his career wasn't ruined, and he wasn't pushed into the margins. His hypotheses that rejected the big bang came out in the 60's. He worked clear up into the 80's. In later years, as the instruments available became more advanced, scientists were able to test Arp's theories and found they didn't hold up. He, however, was too stuck on his hypothesis, and refused to change even when evidence was presented to the contrary. So is he really the example you want to hold up? It seems he is EXACTLY the kind of scientist you have railed against - his ego wouldn't let him admit that he was wrong.


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> Obligatory courses on philosophy of science. Maybe also IQ tests and personality tests to weed out the consensus dependent thinkers and those with a frail ego or lot of emotional investment in being respected.
> 
> I think for many people it could be difficult to admit even to themselves that their career has been based on nonsense, as you could say has been the case with psychiatrists for fifty years. Those people shouldn't be found in tenured positions or any positions of authority in the fields of science and related fields.
> 
> Kind of like how society needs to weed out those with narcissistic personality disorder from politics and finance and law enforcement etc.
> 
> Now just remember that it took over thirty years for the psychiatric community to catch up.


I see - the Inquisition for scientists. That sounds like a reasonable way to go. IQ and personality tests? Will you also subject yourself to such tests? And how smart should a person have to be? And the personality tests - would they be conducted by those same people you don't trust to correctly determine how to treat depression?

We live in a free society. People are free to seek whatever line of work they choose. If they aren't any good at it, they will naturally be weeded out. Those who are no good in science tend to not get funded, don't get published, and disappear. We don't need IQ Gestapo going around and testing.


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## Guest

Piwikiwi makes a great point. Go to ANY scientific conference, and you will find no shortage of scientists who would just LOVE to disprove a competitors ideas. They pick apart their ideas - why didn't you test this? What if this had happened? Did you consider this? So and so showed something different - how do you explain that? 

Those are common questions and critiques. You don't think scientists question the hypotheses of others? I wish you could read a standard review of a grant proposal - reviewers just LOVE pointing out flaws. If anything, those egos you detest in science keep it all moving forward, weeding out the flaws. Even in a grant that gets high points and gets funded, reviewers will still pick it apart. At least here in the U.S., one of the major points you have to address in a grant proposal to the NIH is how your work is NOVEL and INNOVATIVE. A whole section has to be dedicated to explaining the innovation in the grant. If you are just asking the same questions in a slightly different way, it is doomed. 

Science isn't a good ol' boys network, with everybody ganging up and pushing the status quo. It is an aggressive field where people are pushing to make major discoveries, and when they discover something new and novel, something nobody else has described, they jump on it quickly. New means novel, and can mean innovative, which gives them a leg up on the competition - the easiest way to get publications is to be the only person in a particular field, because you were the first to discover it - so long as the science you do is sound and not flawed. Then everybody just thinks you got your novel observations because you screwed something up. 

Go on reading your philosophy of science books - they don't tell you anything about what really happens among scientists.


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## Chordalrock

DrMike said:


> This group of physicists you mention - without naming - what kind of interesting insights do they have? Can they provide evidence to support those insights? Can anybody else verify their results? Anybody can have an "interesting" insight. That doesn't make it true, and doesn't automatically mean it merits funding.


They're basically cosmologists, and call their viewpoint The Electric Universe theory.

Some of their predictions that have come to pass:

http://www.thunderbolts.info/predictions.htm

Pending predictions:

http://www.thunderbolts.info/predictions_pending.htm

Summary of some of their ideas:

https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/about/syn/

The preface of a longer and wider synopsis:

http://www.holoscience.com/wp/synopsis/

Also, Halton Arp has had a website for a long time so I'd say he's interested in communicating his ideas. If you google "Halton Arp fired" (without the quotation marks) you'll get some results saying he was fired (from some job) and banned from using the telescopes.


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## Guest

I've never heard of those guys, or the Electric Universe theory. I am not a physicist, nor an astrophysicist. But suffice it to say, that is not the accepted theory on how the universe works. I would ask what it means to be basically a cosmologist. What is their training and education? I read in the "About" section of their website that their theories are simple enough that high school kids can grasp it, and no higher math is needed - that sets of alarms in my head. But I don't have the expertise to argue this matter.

Okay, so some people say Arp was fired. Others say he was given early retirement. Others say that he was given less time on the scopes for various reasons - he was no longer doing productive research, he refused to submit requests for time because he didn't feel he had to explain what he wanted to do with his time on the scopes. He held his job for 29 years. He held it for almost a decade after he participated in a debate where pretty much everybody concluded that his hypotheses had been disproven. And then he spent time at the Max Planck Institute after his retirement. That doesn't sound like a guy who was railroaded for an unpopular theory. And again - he seems to fit your definition of a bad scientist. Perhaps a personality analysis of him would have revealed the wrong personality for science. He seems to have been unable to acknowledge any flaws in his theories, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. You claim he shouldn't have been fired or marginalized - but if he is the wrong personality, you would have banned him from science in the first place.


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## Chordalrock

Why don't you take a look at the predictions they've made that for example NASA was wrong about and they were right about? That should set off some alarms in your head with regards to the establishment competence.

And I didn't say my reform was without question perfect, just a lot better than the current system.


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## Guest

I'm just saying that the person you are holding up as an example of what is bad in science not accepting different ideas is also, ironically, more than likely an ideal candidate for the type of person that you wouldn't let practice science in the first place. He seems to have been someone who couldn't bring himself to admit that his career was based on nonsense.

As to the website - I am leery of delving too deep. I don't know enough to know whether the "facts" they are presenting are actually facts. Whether the areas they claim NASA was wrong were actually wrong, and the ways they claim to be right are right. But do they actually do any experimentation of their own, or are they purely in your much derided area of "theoretical" science?


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## mmsbls

Chordalrock said:


> They're basically cosmologists, and call their viewpoint The Electric Universe theory.


I looked at their website and found some very problematic statements. I could find no papers detailing their theories, but I did find a section about common misconceptions. The first page discusses the "misconception" that science is self-correcting. They give 2 examples supposedly showing that science does not correct its errors - the Eddington measurements of Einstein's general relativity predictions of light bending during an eclipse and the Davis measurement of solar neutrinos.

The site says that Eddington reported that the measurements confirmed the Newtonian theory rather than General Relativity. That is incorrect. They quote a statement from Eddington about what analysis of certain photographic plates showed - those plates were in agreement with Newtonian theory. Those plates, however, were believed to be problematic due to viewing conditions. Plates taken at another site during the eclipse under much better conditions showed agreement with General Relativity, and both Eddington and his fellow researcher, Dyson, concluded that their experiment confirmed General Relativity. Future experiments confirmed the original measurements. I have trouble believing that cosmologists would not know this.

The site discusses the Davis experiments with the following, "The Standard Solar Model was specific in its prediction of neutrinos emanating from core nuclear fusion from the Sun. From the 1960s on, neutrino observatories were set up to track neutrinos coming from the Sun. All the neutrino observatories gave the same answer, without exception: The flux of neutrinos coming from the Sun was a fraction of what it should have been. Clearly, nuclear fusion could not be the sole source of solar energy. Did the scientific method kick in and declare the hypothesis falsified? Not at all, quite the contrary. In 2002, Ray Davis and Masatoshi Koshiba won the Nobel Prize for Physics for establishing that only a third of the expected solar neutrinos were getting to the Earth. Somehow that result was taken as verification of the Standard Solar Model."

The first half is correct - Davis's experiments showed 1/3 the predicted number of neutrinos. Scientists did not declare the solar model a failed hypothesis for good reasons. In fact, what actually happened was a spectacular example of wonderful science in action. After several decades neutrino detection advanced to the point where experimenters could determine what flavor of neutrino (there are 3) they were measuring. Experiments in 2002 showed that what actually happens to solar neutrinos is that electron neutrinos (the kind Davis detected) "mix" into both muon and tau neutrinos. In other words electron neutrinos leave the sun and turn into other types. Since there are 2 other types, calculations showed that only 1/3 of electron neutrinos will reach the earth. Physicists were correct about the solar model, about neutrino detection, and also developed a new addition to the most precise scientific theory ever postulated - the Standard Model (not Standard Solar Model). They had discovered that neutrinos have mass and mix flavors. And yes, the result ultimately was taken as a verification of the Standard Solar Model as it should. Why does The Electric Universe group not know these details?

Both of these examples show poor understanding of physics. I don't know if the group doesn't know what I described above or if they are simply lying to make their point. I assume they feel the science community has treated them improperly, and they must show reasons why science often fails (as in their case). At any rate, I'm unlikely to pursue "The Electric Universe" further.


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## Richannes Wrahms

Chordalrock said:


> Obligatory courses on philosophy of science.


Doesn't work, people who don't want to listen don't listen. That how you get top-of-their-class philosophers who don't understand a thing and consequently write pure... or worse, writers who can't distinguish philosophy from science, like Kuhn whose whole model of 'Scientific Revolutions' relies in that sort of misunderstandings.



Chordalrock said:


> Maybe also IQ tests and personality tests to weed out the consensus dependent thinkers and those with a frail ego or lot of emotional investment in being respected.


That is ethically, legally and practically questionable. A great deal of innovative scientists (and musicians, for the sake of this forum) of diverse fields had and have varied and more than bizarre personalities. Incidentally, many of them have highly questioned the purpose and effectiveness of IQ tests.


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## Chordalrock

mmsbls said:


> Both of these examples show poor understanding of physics. I don't know if the group doesn't know what I described above or if they are simply lying to make their point. I assume they feel the science community has treated them improperly, and they must show reasons why science often fails (as in their case). At any rate, I'm unlikely to pursue "The Electric Universe" further.


This is bias, since the mainstream makes mistakes as well, but you don't stop listening to the mainstream.

The Electric Universe scientists could be wrong about some things and right about many others.


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## Chordalrock

Richannes Wrahms said:


> That is ethically, legally and practically questionable.


No, it's not. I don't know about America, but many employers in Europe have used personality tests and IQ tests as part of the application process.

Not using the best tools at our disposal to select the best candidates for important work positions and so on is irrational.


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## Guest

One of the guys in this group, Talbott, got his ****** in Education and Political Science, then did graduate work in Urban Studies. Not sure how this qualifies him as a cosmologist. He proposed an idea that in ancient times, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Earth, and Venus all orbited the sun in a single linear unit. And then they separated, and this was the origin of mythology. Another, Thornhill, at least has a degree in physics and electronics. He liked Talbott's crazy idea, combined it with his notions of electricity, and came up with the Electric Universe theory, as an alternative to ideas of gravitation in governing the way planets, stars, etc., interact with one another.

Now, I'm sure that you will see this as academia stifling new ideas - but this is just flat out crazy. We are basing all of this on the mythology theories of a guy trained in education, political science, and urban studies? But let them go ahead with what they want to believe. They don't actually conduct any experiments - convenient, so they won't ever produce any data that can be held up to scrutiny. They just misrepresent what others do, and twist it to support their notions.


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> This is bias, since the mainstream makes mistakes as well, but you don't stop listening to the mainstream.
> 
> The Electric Universe scientists could be wrong about some things and right about many others.


Yes, the mainstream makes mistakes. And other scientists point it out. They self-correct.

But mmsbls pointed out more than mistakes by these Electric Universe "scientists," he pointed out a basic understanding of what seem to be basic concepts. Either they don't know them, or they choose to ignore whatever doesn't fit into their convenient narrative.


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## Chordalrock

DrMike said:


> One of the guys in this group, Talbott, got his ****** in Education and Political Science, then did graduate work in Urban Studies. Not sure how this qualifies him as a cosmologist. He proposed an idea that in ancient times, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Earth, and Venus all orbited the sun in a single linear unit. And then they separated, and this was the origin of mythology. Another, Thornhill, at least has a degree in physics and electronics. He liked Talbott's crazy idea, combined it with his notions of electricity, and came up with the Electric Universe theory, as an alternative to ideas of gravitation in governing the way planets, stars, etc., interact with one another.
> 
> Now, I'm sure that you will see this as academia stifling new ideas - but this is just flat out crazy. We are basing all of this on the mythology theories of a guy trained in education, political science, and urban studies? But let them go ahead with what they want to believe. They don't actually conduct any experiments - convenient, so they won't ever produce any data that can be held up to scrutiny. They just misrepresent what others do, and twist it to support their notions.


I'd say you're yourself misrepresenting them.

I also didn't count Talbott among the scientists. He doesn't write on those websites. He was just someone that Thornhill collaborated with on a book.


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## Chordalrock

DrMike said:


> Yes, the mainstream makes mistakes. And other scientists point it out. They self-correct.
> 
> But mmsbls pointed out more than mistakes by these Electric Universe "scientists," he pointed out a basic understanding of what seem to be basic concepts. Either they don't know them, or they choose to ignore whatever doesn't fit into their convenient narrative.


In part, they have their own understanding of basic concepts. This being the whole point of having a different viewpoint in many cases.

At any rate, you're exaggerating the importance of what mmsbls wrote.

What makes you think the Electric Universe guys never correct their mistakes? If no one ever bothers to point any of them out to them, that could be a reason. And as I said, none of this logically means that they might not be right about many other things.


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> No, it's not. I don't know about America, but many employers in Europe have used personality tests and IQ tests as part of the application process.
> 
> Not using the best tools at our disposal to select the best candidates for important work positions and so on is irrational.


In the U.S., we believe a bit more in self-determination. If you can meet the necessary academic requirements, you can go to college and study whatever you like. Of course, it is still up to you to perform well academically, but nobody can restrict you based on questionable IQ tests and personality evaluations. What a dreary place that must be, where people are told they can't follow their dreams based on imperfect tests that are beyond their ability to control.


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> I'd say you're yourself misrepresenting them.
> 
> I also didn't count Talbott among the scientists. He doesn't write on those websites. He was just someone that Thornhill collaborated with on a book.


Both of the books that are authored by Thornhill, and cited on the website you pointed me to, are co-authored by Talbott. Clearly he is a key figure in the whole development of these ideas.


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## mmsbls

Chordalrock said:


> This is bias, since the mainstream makes mistakes as well, but you don't stop listening to the mainstream.
> 
> The Electric Universe scientists could be wrong about some things and right about many others.


No, this isn't bias, and mainstream physicists don't make "mistakes" like those. No one on TC would say Beethoven shouldn't be considered a great composer because he never composed any symphonies or quartets.

It's conceivable that The Electric Universe could be right about some things, but at this point all I know about them is that they appear to be either incredibly incompetent physicists or intent on deceiving people so I simply have no interest.


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## Chordalrock

mmsbls said:


> No, this isn't bias, and mainstream physicists don't make "mistakes" like those. No one on TC would say Beethoven shouldn't be considered a great composer because he never composed any symphonies or quartets.
> 
> It's conceivable that The Electric Universe could be right about some things, but at this point all I know about them is that they appear to be either incredibly incompetent physicists or intent on deceiving people so I simply have no interest.


You didn't actually critique their understanding of physical phenomena so much as you critiqued them for being behind the times and not knowing all the latest developments. In one instance you pointed out their knowledge of the history of physics was in that one instance incorrect.

Again, not such an important critique as you for some puzzling reason feel compelled to make it out to be.


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> You didn't actually critique their understanding of physical phenomena so much as you critiqued them for being behind the times and not knowing all the latest developments. In one instance you pointed out their knowledge of the history of physics was in that one instance incorrect.
> be
> Again, not such an important critique as you for some puzzling reason feel compelled to make it out to be.


Theirs is more a belief system than science. And, much like conspiracy theories, they thrive on people telling them they are ridiculous, because no matter how much they are proven wrong, they can always just claim that it is the bias of academia that refuses to accept their alternate ideas. They don't do science. They don't test anything. They sit around, pick and choose what data they want to consider - typically only those data that can easily be adapted to their ideas - and either disregard those that disprove them, or flat out pretend they don't exist. And they provide no data of their own that can be tested for validity. They are a little club that gets together and pats each other on the back for being so much more open-minded about things than those stodgy old guys in "academia" and play around with their notions - born of the musings of a guy trained in education, political science, and urban studies cooking up a cockamamie theory about planet alignments and the origins of mythology, fused with the notions of a guy who really likes electricity and couldn't hack it in academia.

That's really all they are - oh, and you can buy their books on their website. In a lot of ways, these guys remind me of Scientology - and the books by Thornhill and Talbott are their Dianetics.


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## PetrB

*Black Holes suggest new math is woefully inaccurate and inadequate. Black Holes laugh at a species whose space exploration is mere probes and landings on their only and very near satellite and just one of their closest neighboring planets.*


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## Piwikiwi

Chordalrock said:


> No, it's not. I don't know about America, but many employers in Europe have used personality tests and IQ tests as part of the application process.
> 
> Not using the best tools at our disposal to select the best candidates for important work positions and so on is irrational.


Iq test are really easy to "cheat" on. You can simply practice doing iq tests and score a lot better


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> They're basically cosmologists, and call their viewpoint The Electric Universe theory.


Just because their theories conflict with those of 'orthodox academia' doesn't mean they're 'right' or that academia's failure to embrace their hypotheses signifies a problem with the notion of 'self-correction'. Just because the media has a habit of presenting every new piece of research as a contradiction of what went before (yesterday) doesn't mean that that is how it works.


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## aleazk

PetrB said:


> *Black Holes suggest new math is woefully inaccurate and inadequate. Black Holes laugh at a species whose space exploration is mere probes and landings on their only and very near satellite and just one of their closest neighboring planets.*


You don't need spaceships in order to test the effects produced/predicted around a black hole. A combination of optical and radio telescopes is enough.


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## PetrB

aleazk said:


> You don't need spaceships in order to test the effects produced/predicted around a black hole. A combination of optical and radio telescopes is enough.


My friend, _can Black Holes laugh?_


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## aleazk

PetrB said:


> My friend, _can Black Holes laugh?_


No, they like to be literal when talking about science!


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## Badinerie

They can have Spin, be Hairy,and leak Radiation. (A bit like myself!) They need a sense of humour. They don't like to be referred to as Black Holes though. They prefer the term "Gravitationally Challenged"


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## brianvds

PetrB said:


> My friend, _can Black Holes laugh?_


They can, and some of that laughter can even slowly leak out, through a process known as Hawking laughter. Eventually the black hole will evaporate in a puff of muffled giggles.

More seriously, I do not know remotely enough physics to comment much on this specific issue (heck, I can't even get my puny mind around Newtonian physics, let alone all this quantum stuff), but in the sciences we need to always remember: the final arbiter of the validity of a theory is not math or logic, but observation. And it seems to me that we need more observation and less theory here. Of course, the observation bit is a tad tricky.


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## Chordalrock

The current cosmological model relies on such convoluted ad hoc hypotheses (dark matter, dark energy) that I'd say it's about time to start looking elsewhere for alternate theories.

The Electric Universe guys may not be the best salesmen of their model, but considering the state of mainstream cosmology (they believe in dark matter so why not ghosts too?), I wouldn't dismiss them so easily...


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## Piwikiwi

Chordalrock said:


> The current cosmological model relies on such convoluted ad hoc hypotheses (dark matter, dark energy) that I'd say it's about time to start looking elsewhere for alternate theories.
> 
> The Electric Universe guys may not be the best salesmen of their model, but considering the state of mainstream cosmology (they believe in dark matter so why not ghosts too?), I wouldn't dismiss them so easily...


I will take them seriously once they get a peer reviewed publication.

The dark matter/energy bit is problematic but it is not as af the scientific community is hiding that.


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## mmsbls

Chordalrock said:


> You didn't actually critique their understanding of physical phenomena so much as you critiqued them for being behind the times and not knowing all the latest developments.


Do you know anything about the Electric Universe theory? One important aspect is their explanation of solar physics. That is one area of their supposed expertise. You are suggesting that it's not an issue if they don't know the latest developments in their area of expertise. Actually it's not just the latest developments but work that led to a Nobel Prize - hardly obscure developments.



Chordalrock said:


> In one instance you pointed out their knowledge of the history of physics was in that one instance incorrect.


You are completely missing the point, and it's actually a bit interesting. Their knowledge of the history of physics was _not_ incorrect. In fact it was surprisingly good. I did not know about the results from the one set of plates (I had to find and read the details), and I suspect that most physicists don't. Physicists just know about what we're all taught - that the experiment confirmed General Relativity. So you believe that they knew modestly obscure details of the critical experiment, but they did not know what all physicists are taught about the experiment. Of course they knew. They deliberately told only part of the story. Why?

It actually reminds me of a great story from one of the Creationist trials. Young Earth creationists were fond of quoting evolutionary biologists out of context. They would quote part of a section that seemed to shed doubt on evolution. They would leave out the remainder of the section that explained the issues raised and tended to confirm evolution. When one creationist was asked at the trial why he only quoted those parts, he responded, "You have to stop quoting somewhere."


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> You have to stop


You're so right mmsbls!


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## Chordalrock

Fair enough, but dark matter, dark energy? Come on.

edit: I'd actually recall they explained somewhere that the newest experiment didn't actually confirm Einstein. I suppose perhaps they just don't feel like going through all the basics in one article as it would get pretty long. Still I'd agree they're not making a good impression so perhaps they're not very good at writing intro material.


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## Piwikiwi

Chordalrock said:


> Fair enough, but dark matter, dark energy? Come on.
> 
> edit: I'd actually recall they explained somewhere that the newest experiment didn't actually confirm Einstein. I suppose perhaps they just don't feel like going through all the basics in one article as it would get pretty long. Still I'd agree they're not making a good impression so perhaps they're not very good at writing intro material.


On Einstein




More Einstein












On dark matter




On dark energy





All explained by professors of the university of Nottingham


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> The current cosmological model relies on such convoluted ad hoc hypotheses (dark matter, dark energy) that I'd say it's about time to start looking elsewhere for alternate theories.
> 
> The Electric Universe guys may not be the best salesmen of their model, but considering the state of mainstream cosmology (they believe in dark matter so why not ghosts too?), I wouldn't dismiss them so easily...


That logic isn't very convincing. Because one theory is confusing to those outside the field, why not give this one a try?

Science gets very tricky when you get into the minutiae. Guess what - you don't get a vastly complex system like an ecosystem, or a planet, or a solar system, or a universe, with simplistic laws. Look at the way technology goes - the more things we need machines to do, the more complex the machines have to be. So knocking science simply because some of the higher theories are too difficult for the average person to comprehend does not make sense. I work in immunology - not cosmology. I try to explain the basic aspects of the immune system - the very basic, no longer disputed aspects - to friends and family, and I get blank stares. In the same way, my engineer father-in-law starts explaining the many uses of concrete, and I get a glossed-over look in my eyes.

We live at a time where our knowledge is incredible, and as a result, our expertise is very compartmentalized. 200 years ago, if you wanted anything fixed on your house, you learned how to do it, or it didn't get done. Now there are specialists for every component. The more advanced a society and its knowledge, the more specialized our expertise. So no, the fact that certain cosmological hypotheses are difficult to wrap my head around doesn't particularly worry me. I'm still trying to get straight in my mind the subatomic particles below proton, neutron, and electron.


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## Guest

aleazk said:


> You don't need spaceships in order to test the effects produced/predicted around a black hole. A combination of optical and radio telescopes is enough.


Yes, but having a spaceship there is extra cool, especially if it is captained by a crazy Maximillian Schell with his zombie crew and psychotic security droid.









Oh, and if it also stars Anthony Perkins and Ernest Borgnine, bonus!


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> The current cosmological model relies on such convoluted ad hoc hypotheses (dark matter, dark energy) that I'd say it's about time to start looking elsewhere for alternate theories.
> 
> The Electric Universe guys may not be the best salesmen of their model, but considering the state of mainstream cosmology (they believe in dark matter so why not ghosts too?), I wouldn't dismiss them so easily...


Oh, they aren't quite ad hoc. Yes, there is - as we like to say in science - a lot of hand waving around dark matter and dark energy. But the data does seem to suggest that there is something else out there that has mass and is exerting gravitational pull, but we can't detect it by our known methods. The same goes for dark energy - what is causing the outer parts of spiral galaxies to spin as rapidly as the inner parts? What is causing the universe to accelerate the rate at which it is expanding?

The thing is, those guys lay out their hypotheses and publish them and submit their calculations to the scrutiny of others. There is science going on there. The Electric Universe people at your website seem to have the handwaving down, but nothing else. So I will dismiss them until they do something other than cherry pick the data of others to support their claims.


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## ArtMusic

Chordalrock said:


> http://www.geek.com/science/new-study-claims-black-holes-are-mathematically-impossible-1605320/
> 
> I like how the writer of this article goes to great pains to divert attention from the fact that this would mean thousands of highly respected physicists turned out to be incompetent hacks living on tax payer money by pretending to be smart people.


It's sort of like controversial artworks too. It gets the attention of the scientist.


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## Chordalrock

DrMike said:


> Oh, they aren't quite ad hoc. Yes, there is - as we like to say in science - a lot of hand waving around dark matter and dark energy. But the data does seem to suggest that there is something else out there that has mass and is exerting gravitational pull, but we can't detect it by our known methods. The same goes for dark energy - what is causing the outer parts of spiral galaxies to spin as rapidly as the inner parts? What is causing the universe to accelerate the rate at which it is expanding?


They're ad hoc because the Big Bang theory and the theory about red shift would have been falsified without these new concepts being invented, and they were invented purely so that the theories wouldn't have been falsified. Saying there is data to support them is like saying there is data to support the geocentric model. Sure, there's "data". It's just that the data is interpreted through an increasingly fantastical theory. What there isn't is observation: no dark matter or dark energy ever directly observed, any more than anyone has ever been able to observe the physics of a ghost.


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> They're ad hoc because the Big Bang theory and the theory about red shift would have been falsified without these new concepts being invented, and they were invented purely so that the theories wouldn't have been falsified. Saying there is data to support them is like saying there is data to support the geocentric model. Sure, there's "data". It's just that the data is interpreted through an increasingly fantastical theory. What there isn't is observation: no dark matter or dark energy ever directly observed, any more than anyone has ever been able to observe the physics of a ghost.


So, what you're suggesting is that every time there is any evidence that is inconsistent with the current theory, scientists should go back to a blank slate and start completely from scratch? Or go at least as far back as the last discarded theory?


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## Chordalrock

MacLeod said:


> So, what you're suggesting is that every time there is any evidence that is inconsistent with the current theory, scientists should go back to a blank slate and start completely from scratch? Or go at least as far back as the last discarded theory?


They should certainly consider alternative models when their current model claims that 90% of matter is magically unobservable.


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## Piwikiwi

Chordalrock said:


> They should certainly consider alternative models when their current model claims that 90% of matter is magically unobservable.


Have you seen the video I.posted? They specifically state that ut has been observed indirectly. They just can't see it.


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> They should certainly consider alternative models when their current model claims that 90% of matter is magically unobservable.


I think that's what 'they' are doing when they adjust the predominant model with new ideas. Yes, it is possible that 'they' might stick for too long to a 'wrong' idea, but your alternative is problematic.


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## Guest

Chordalrock said:


> They should certainly consider alternative models when their current model claims that 90% of matter is magically unobservable.


Actually, I am open to other alternatives - but I am also skeptical of sources. To use a sports analogy referring to American Football, just because I don't like the coach's calls doesn't mean I think every armchair quarterback is more capable of making the right calls.

Your preferred group here lacks more than the ability to give a good intro. They lack qualifications. I looked through the list of people who contribute to that site - amateur cosmologists (whatever that is - is that something like an amateur physician, can I get medical advice from someone who watches enough TV shows about medicine?), and others in fields not particularly specializing in cosmology.

There is always a strain of anti-academia. And from time to time, scientists do some bone-headed things to justify it. But not always, and universal skepticism of scientists seems rather ridiculous. Do I think cosmologists and astrophysicists have it all figured out? No. Could they be wrong? Sure - that is the nature of science. But there at least is some justification to give credence to their hypotheses over those of your EU group. It seems bizarre to me that someone who might reject scientists would cling to some group that seems to carry even less credibility. Is it simply because they are anti-academia? Is that their badge of authority? Seems like flimsy credentials.


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## mmsbls

Chordalrock said:


> They should certainly consider alternative models when their current model claims that 90% of matter is magically unobservable.


I realize that dark matter is non-intuitive and difficult for non-physicists (and some physicists as well) to understand. I'm curious what you mean in the above by the word "magically"? Do you think there are any physics theories that resort to magic?

If you honestly think that physicists believe that dark matter is unobservable, please look at this list of ongoing or planned experiments to observe dark matter. I doubt people would spend this much time and money on something that had to fail.

I assume you meant something different from "magically unobservable", but when you write that, it gives the impression of someone not interested in science.

Incidentally, there are many examples of physicists gaining empirical data and then postulating previously unobserved phenomena to explain those data.

The planet Neptune
Quarks
The W and Z boson
The Higgs Boson
etc.

One example very similar to dark matter is the neutrino. Experiments showed missing momentum and energy (momentum and energy must be conserved in all interactions). The neutrino was postulated as a particle that carried off the missing momentum and energy in those interactions and _that only interacted very weakly with matter so it had not been observed_. Future experiments did find the neutrino by looking for particles that behaved exactly as theoretically predicted. This example seems to parallel dark matter very closely and may give you a better sense of why physicists postulate dark matter and are searching for it.

Finally, do you honestly believe that physicists have not thought of other possible explanations? Two examples:

Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) - slight modifications of the gravitational force.
gravitational polarization of the quantum vacuum - virtual particles form gravitational dipoles which strengthen the gravitational field

I assume there are others. Given the desire to understand reality and win Nobel prizes, physicists have likely considered a large number of possible solutions - ones that actually precisely (through calculations) explain the new phenomena and that _don't violate what is known with high confidence about the physical world_.


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