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Michael Disney is one of perhaps the three three biggest and
most-published names in the galaxy trade, the other two being Sydney
Van Den Bergh and William Keel. Disney has had enough of those who
advocate the Standard Model and has let loose a "highly opinionated
attack". Read it at astro-ph/0009020
Disney calls the current attitude a "triumphalist approach" and cites
a recent statement as "naive in the extreme and betrays a complete
lack of understanding of history, of the huge difference between an
observational and experimental science". He goes on, "It is very
questionable whether the study of any phenomenon that is not
repeatable can call itself a science at all", and alludes to current
practitioners as a "priesthood".
Disney lists 14 particular difficulties for cosmology "as a science".
As a galaxy man, he is obviously troubled by galaxy rotational
profiles not following current knowledge, and says "We cover up this
scandal by professing to believe in "Dark Matter" - for which as much
independent evidence exists as for the Emperor's New Clothes."
Disney places the current status of cosmology into historical
perspective (as this writer has previously done). He writes "look...
at some of the howlers we have made" and says that we should not make
"the FORTUNATE EPOCH" assumption that we live in the privileged time
in which we tease out the crucial observations. According to Disney,
the right attitude for cosmologists to have is to say "Don't be
impressed by our complex machines or our arcane mathematics. They
have been used to build plausible cosmic stories before - which we
have had to discard afterwards in the face of improving evidence. The
likelihood must be that such revisions will have to occur again and
again and again."
Food for thought for some of you lot who post so enthusiastically in
defense of the standard model.
Eric Flesch
Eric Flesch <eric@flesch.org> wrote in message
news:39b52748.481642@news.iconz.co.nz...
> Read it at astro-ph/0009020
I happen to agree with most of the opinion. People like myself who regularly
support that Standard Model do it to prevent the impression that there is no
substantive theory at all, not to conceal its numerous weaknesses.
How about a complete link to the original article?
--
Paul Lutus
www.arachnoid.com
On Tue, 5 Sep 2000 11:04:43 -0700, Paul Lutus wrote:
>How about a complete link to the original article?
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0009020
Eric
In article <1Bat5.61770$g53.982657@news5.giganews.com>, Paul Lutus
<nospam@nosite.com> wrote:
> Eric Flesch <eric@flesch.org> wrote in message
> news:39b52748.481642@news.iconz.co.nz...
>
> > Read it at astro-ph/0009020
>
> I happen to agree with most of the opinion. People like myself who regularly
> support that Standard Model do it to prevent the impression that there is no
> substantive theory at all, not to conceal its numerous weaknesses.
This is quite a doubletalk comment, Mr. Flesch. Taken completely he
(Disney) pretty much lays it out that there really is no substantive
theory at all. Its numerous weaknesses mean that it is not substantive
as a whole. But you are essentially saying that you support the
Standard Model to prevent the impression that there is not a
substantive theory at all. In essence it seems that you are a behind
the scenes set man at a movie location. You know that the buildings in
the street are all false fronts and you are going to do your best to
make sure that they look like buildings even though you agree that they
are not. Isn't that essentially what you were saying? You know its a
bunch of fackery but you want to keep up the illusion that the
cosmologists have something substantive even though you agree they
don't. Hmmm. Hmmm. Spoken like a true cosmologist. Disney is
basically saying it really doesn't even qualify as a science and he
drives home the point of the tremendous difference between experimental
science and observational pointing out that the work product of the
practicioners of the later are producing that which should be received
with the utmost skepticism.
Charles Cagle
C. Cagle wrote in message <160920000456547767%cagle@singtech.com>...
>Disney is basically saying it really doesn't even qualify as a science and he
>drives home the point of the tremendous difference between experimental
>science and observational pointing out that the work product of the
>practicioners of the later are producing that which should be received
>with the utmost skepticism.
Except that Disney's own field, galactic astronomy, is also an
observational science, and he places significantly greater stock in it than
he does in cosmology. No, he is mainly pointing out cosmology's great
difficulties/disadvantages compared to other observational sciences, (e.g.
galactic astronomy). Since cosmological data is so sketchy and biased, he
concludes that we must be really careful and skeptical, I mean more
skeptical than usual, and a lot more skeptical than we currently are, about
what interpretations we make and what conclusions we draw. Otherwise we
aren't really doing science, in which case cosmology doesn't deserve to be
called a science. That's the main message I gleaned from Disney's paper.
Bendito;
In article <8q00k6$klo$1@bugstomper.ihug.com.au>, Bendito
<lonewolf@deletethis.tig.com.au> wrote:
> C. Cagle wrote in message <160920000456547767%cagle@singtech.com>...
> >Disney is basically saying it really doesn't even qualify as a science and he
> >drives home the point of the tremendous difference between experimental
> >science and observational pointing out that the work product of the
> >practicioners of the later are producing that which should be received
> >with the utmost skepticism.
>
> Except that Disney's own field, galactic astronomy, is also an
> observational science,
And Disney distinctly raises the issue as to whether or not any
observational science can be called a 'science' at all.
and he places significantly greater stock in it than
> he does in cosmology. No, he is mainly pointing out cosmology's great
> difficulties/disadvantages compared to other observational sciences, (e.g.
> galactic astronomy). Since cosmological data is so sketchy and biased, he
> concludes that we must be really careful and skeptical, I mean more
> skeptical than usual, and a lot more skeptical than we currently are, about
> what interpretations we make and what conclusions we draw. Otherwise we
> aren't really doing science, in which case cosmology doesn't deserve to be
> called a science. That's the main message I gleaned from Disney's paper.
>
> Bendito;
C. Cagle wrote in message <180920002301268279%cagle@singtech.com>...
>And Disney distinctly raises the issue as to whether or not any
>observational science can be called a 'science' at all.
Yes, he raises it, but be careful not to take him out of context:
"It is very questionable whether the study of any phenomenon that is not
repeatable can call itself a science at all. It would be sad however to
abandon the whole fascinating area to the priesthood. But if we are going to
lend this unique subject any kind of scientific respectibility we have to
look at all its claims with a great circumspection and listen to its
proponents with even greater scepticism than is usually necessary."
He clearly sees room for accepting cosmology and other observational
disciplines into the scientific fold, but such acceptance is dependent on a
stricter than usual scepticism on the part of its practitioners, which, he
claims is currently lacking. This does, of course, leave a lot of open doors
for the creationists and other quacks of their ilk to ply their trade, not
that they need any encouragement!
Bendito;
In article <8q72td$fq8$1@bugstomper.ihug.com.au>, Bendito
<lonewolf@deletethis.tig.com.au> wrote:
> C. Cagle wrote in message <180920002301268279%cagle@singtech.com>...
>
> >And Disney distinctly raises the issue as to whether or not any
> >observational science can be called a 'science' at all.
>
> Yes, he raises it, but be careful not to take him out of context:
>
> "It is very questionable whether the study of any phenomenon that is not
> repeatable can call itself a science at all. It would be sad however to
> abandon the whole fascinating area to the priesthood. But if we are going to
> lend this unique subject any kind of scientific respectibility we have to
> look at all its claims with a great circumspection and listen to its
> proponents with even greater scepticism than is usually necessary."
Yes. But *you* _should_ take him in context. The facts that he
outlined speak pretty loudly that it is impossible to 'lend this unique
subject any kind of respectibility' since people really don't look at
its grandiose claims which are made from a "triumphalist approach" with
either great circumspection nor with hardly any scepticism at all. How
could they when everyone backs away from simply calling such people as
Stephen Hawking outright intellectual masturbatory fools? It is too
late. The frauds in those particular pseudosciences are manifold and
no one hardly ever stands up and makes us take a close look at the
whole game as Disney has assayed to do in his article.
> He clearly sees room for accepting cosmology and other observational
> disciplines into the scientific fold, but such acceptance is dependent on a
> stricter than usual scepticism on the part of its practitioners, which, he
> claims is currently lacking.
Right and since it isn't going to happen then there really is no room
for them except from a peripheral approach. That is, and we can set
reasonable limits on what constitutes 'science' with regard to these
endeavors. 1) Instrument building to collect data (that involves
science). 2) Getting the instruments to where ever they may be
positioned to collecting that data (as in orbit in a satellite). That
involves science. 3) Retrieving the data. That involves the use of
technology and repeatable procedures. That's science.
4) Interpreting the phenomena behind the generation of the photons,
fields, etc. that make up the data. That isn't science because the
experimenter cannot interact with the phenomenon that he or she is
observing. And even though some phenomena may occur again and again
there isn't always any certainty about underlying processes. And this
is even more true than Disney took pains to point out because he
himself buys into a number of assumptions which cannot be
Read the rest of this message... (55 more lines)
Just finished reading the article. In clarification of your comments,
Disney describes himself as an observationalist addressing comments to
theoretical "cosmologists". It is "cosmology" as a discipline and
"cosmologist" as a title that he denigrates, and which he nominates for
elimination from the lexicons of science and astronomy.
He enumerates his reasons and explains why they are sticking points against
the very concept of understanding the origins of the universe in our
lifetimes our in the upcoming generations. He asserts that (A) statistical
analysis is impossible when dealing with a single universe; (B) the 56 out
of 60 portions of the temporal history of the universe is opaque to our
understanding; (C) "Dark Matter" is a scandlous "invention" put forth by
theoreticians to explain why the Inverse Square Law of gravitation does not
work in other galaxies (saying that CDM is like the Emperor's New Clothes");
(D) The most cosmologically interesting objects reside at distances where
they yield the least information about themselves; (E) He condemns the
modern intrpretation of stellar red shifts, correctly pointing out that it
is impossible for them to mean what we currently believe them to mean
because if the shifts were do to the relative motions implied, then the
observed objects would be so far away that we would not be able to see them
at all (fairly convincing argument); (F) Bigger scopes won't improve the S/N
situation (they'll amplify forground noise more than stellar signals) so we
would be better off looking more locally .
At the wane of his own career he asserts that the new generation isn't any
more "special" than his own: we ain't even close to comprehending the nature
of the universe. Throughout he makes comments suggestive that he has no
confidence in the Big Bang.
So what else is new.
Regards,
Robert
On Tue, 5 Sep 2000, Robert Brown wrote:
> At the wane of his own career he asserts that the new generation isn't any
> more "special" than his own: we ain't even close to comprehending the nature
> of the universe. Throughout he makes comments suggestive that he has no
> confidence in the Big Bang.
He must be young at heart, anyway: he says things don't happen
"accidently" and writes "dissemble" for "disassemble."
BTW, I think his diffidence about the Big Bang is rather more than
suggestive.
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