TVSF - The Very Special Forum!

Usually when we hear the expression "junk science", we think: Oh yes, cold fusion. Despite the brouhaha, serious cold fusion research is continuing. There were strange behaviors by some of the early researchers, and by would-be debunkers as well. Here is the link to a Wikipedia article on the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion

Cold fusion may turn out to be for real, or it may turn out to be another example of sloppy research, like polywater. Here is the link to a Wikipedia article on that subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater

Cold fusion and polywater aside, I want to look at intractable junk science. There are many examples of flim-flam that are palmed off as real science--even in introductory science textbooks!

In many cases, the specialists should know that some of their claims are highly speculative. In still other cases, the specialists do know that they are saying is not really true!

A mundane example: A scientist gives a formal presentation of his research project--"warts and all"--to a meeting of his peers. Then he turns around and give an inaccurate, sexed-up, dumbed-down version of the story to the popular press. However this is not pathological enough to qualify as junk science in the mainstream.

For that matter, neither is publication bias. Example: You are a pharmaceutical researcher investigating the efficacy of a headache pill. If you conclude that the medication is somewhat effective most of the time, you are more likely to get published than some other scientist--whose research is just as good as yours--who comes to the opposite conclusion. Publication bias is well-known in the scientific community, and almost everyone will acknowledge its existence.

Lay people often have the unrealistic expectation that scientists, when acting in their official capacities, are Vulcans. Truth be told, scientists have a full complement of human strengths and weaknesses, that can either enhance or diminish the quality of the work that they do.

Example: the Nobel Prize given for lobotomy research. Here is the link to our discussion in the Scientific Politics thread:
http://www.atfreeforum.com/nordicforum/ ... ordicforum

Some scientific memes can acquire semi-religious overtones. Self-appointed Defenders of the Faith have big ego-investments to protect from the raving heretics at the gate. In this thread, we will explore some scientific heresies.

BLACK HOLES

Black holes are a consequence of Einstein's Relativity Theory (which thus far has withstood numerous experimental challenges). You are supposed to get a black hole whenever you stuff so much mass into a sufficiently small package, that the escape velocity from the surface is greater than the speed of light. Then neither light nor matter can get out.

The popular press glibly reports that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy, and that many other galaxies are similarly endowed. But do black holes actually exist?

The best way to detect a black hole would be to park a spaceship in orbit around a black hole candidate, just outside the putative 'event horizon', the point of no return. Then get your hands dirty, and do some fairly straightforward experiments.

The observational evidence for the existence of black holes falls far short of the mark. Yes, there are very massive and very dense objects in the Universe. But are they really black holes? We're supposed to believe that they are.

Here's the apparent logic. Black hole candidates exist. If the theory of black holes is correct, then the black hole candidates are in fact black holes. Therefore black holes exist.

There's another problem with the theory of black holes: It isn't consistent with the theory of the Big Bang. Assuming that there was a Big Bang, then the Universe itself qualified as a black hole in the first zillionth of a second. Recent astronomical measurements suggest that not only is the Universe continuing to expand, but that it seems to be expanding at an ever-increasing rate.

OK physicists, let me see if I've got this straight. The theory of black holes is valid, with one minor exception: the Universe itself!

The Big Bang is generally accepted within the astrophysics community. Ironically, the black hole theory enjoys a fair amount of respectability as well. Sorry guys, you can't have it both ways.

The Wikipedia article on black holes doesn't mention the discrepancy. Here's the link.

Lots of junk science & pseudoscience right here, check it out.

http://skepdic.com/tijunk.html

I didn't see the Flying Spaghetti Monster on the list at skepdic.com. This must mean that His Noodliness really does exist! Here is a link for the Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

Ha ha, amazing.

How about this one?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisbeetarianism

Thanks for the link. If I hadn't read the Wikipedia article, I would think that Frisbeetarianism was a diet. I wouldn't be very happy eating nothing but frisbees!

Ha ha ha

Me too.

Larry wrote:BLACK HOLES

Black holes are a consequence of Einstein's Relativity Theory (which so far has withstood numerous experimental challenges). You are supposed to get a black hole whenever you stuff so much mass into a sufficiently small package, that the escape velocity from the surface is greater than the speed of light. Then neither light nor matter could get out.

The popular press glibly reports that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy, and that many other galaxies are similarly endowed. But do black holes actually exist?

The best experiment for detecting a black hole would be to park a spaceship in orbit around a putative black hole, just outside the putative 'event horizon', the point of no return. Then throw a flashlight into the black hole candidate. If you can see your flashlight inside of the putative black hole, then the theory of black holes is wrong.

The observational evidence for the existence of black holes falls far short of this gold standard. There is another problem with the theory of black holes: It is not consistent with the theory of the Big Bang.

Assuming that there was a Big Bang, then the Universe itself qualified as a black hole in the first zillionth of a second. Recent astronomical measurements suggest that not only is the Universe continuing to expand, but that it seems to be expanding at an ever-increasing rate. How do you reconcile these two ideas? You can't.

The Big Bang is generally accepted within the astrophysics community. Ironically, the black hole theory enjoys a fair amount of respectability as well. Sorry guys, you can't have it both ways.

The Wikipedia article on black holes does not mention the discrepancy. Here is the link :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole

Many people also think that black holes have such a high gravidity that even not light can be there. (Even not light) as you in some kind of way allready told us. But there is also people who talk about that a soul of a human can passed thru the black hole and came to another dimension. Because no science can tell what really are behind these black holes. Where do the energy flow going ?

Master Of Something wrote:Because no science can tell what really are behind these black holes. Where do the energy flow going ?

Sorry, I am an unemployed chemist, not a physicist. My understanding is that the theory of black holes is consistent with the Energy Conservation Law. However there may be a problem with the principle of conservation of information. Here is the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole ... _unitarity

Yes but it's still different opinions about how the black holes works. But it's real intresting to read about it in many different interpretations !!

COMPLEX NUMBERS

Why do we teach complex numbers to high school students? Mathematicians view complex numbers as fun to learn and useful, although the subject itself is relatively moribund, since many of the interesting questions have already been answered. Complex numbers also make life a little simpler for people who do electrical engineering calculations and for physicists who do quantum mechanics calculations.

The central idea of complex numbers is i, which is one of the more outstanding creations of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. In order to wrap your head around the concept of i, you must wear a pirate's hat. Or better still, an eye patch, if you'll pardon the pun.

There's a lot of confusion about i, because of the poor quality of math instruction in high schools. Here's some background.

We are taught that THE square root of a positive number, like 16, is another positive number--in this case 4. True, when we square -4, we also get 16. However THE square root of a positive real number is DEFINED to be positive. Sometimes we use the expression "PRINCIPAL square root" to make this point absolutely clear. (If we wanted to, we could make up a second name for the -4. We could say that -4 is the mishmash of 16, that -5 is the mishmash of 25, etc.)

The high school algebra texts that I have seen go on to define i as THE square root of -1. Sometimes the statement is given as an equation, using the square root symbol.

As a typical exercise, the student is asked to find THE square root of -361. And the official "answer" is supposed to be 19i. This is pure codswallop. Why?

We are told to accept i as being THE square root of -1. Yet on the next page, we are shown that any nonzero number has THREE cube roots, if we believe in complex numbers. And there are FIVE fifth roots, etc.

This raises the obvious question: What's so special about square roots? There's a fundamental symmetry between i and -i. Any nontrivial statement that you can make concerning i will also be true if you substitute -i. The concept of the PRINCIPAL square root of a negative number is problematic, because we have no way to distinguish between i and -i. Saying, for example, that i is "positive", and that -i is "negative" has no meaning. So why can't a negative real number have TWO complex square roots?

When we are dealing exclusively with positive real numbers, the square root operator--or the mth root operator, where m is odd--always gives a single, unambiguous result. It turns out that there's a reasonable way to define the principal nth root of a complex number. (I have never seen this sophisticated and relatively useless definition presented in a high school algebra textbook.) But if we want to dwell on principal complex nth roots, explicitly or implicitly using that definition, then we must take the extra step of pointing out that a comfortable equation that is true for all positive real numbers doesn't apply in the complex realm. To wit:

SQRT(ab) = SQRT(a) SQRT(b)

If we assumed that this equation is true, without restricting a and b to being nonnegative, we could easily prove that 1=-1, for example. Would anyone care to have a stab at that?

It's so much better simply to say that the PRINCIPAL complex nth root is not a useful concept, and that it won't be on the exam--if anyone asks--and then move on to greener pastures. Since 99% of high school algebra teachers are clueless about these subtle distinctions, their presentations are usually inconsistent and confusing. When we talk to high school students about principal square roots of negative real numbers, we are adding an unnecessary yuck factor to an aesthetically pleasing subject.

What's the take-home message for high school students? This is one of those times when you just have to "play the game", and muddle your way through. Your teacher probably doesn't know enough to present the topic in a way that makes sense to the brighter students, who pick up on the inconsistency and are troubled by it, but can't articulate their intuitions.

So, what's the essence of i? There is no essence. It's simply an imaginary number whose square is -1. If you understand that property, and if you are able to filter out the one piece of excess baggage that is usually presented along with it, then you are in a good position to master the rudiments of complex numbers.

What's the take-home message for high school algebra teachers? Get a better grasp of your subject matter, and don't teach Junk Science--even if it is mainstream.

Thanks for interesting info Larry, we seems to have lots of pro's at this forum.

Synaesthesia, food, history, hiking, computer, mathematics, philosophy, midi experts. Lots of knowledge collected in one and the same forum.

Larry wrote:Assuming that there was a Big Bang, then the Universe itself qualified as a black hole in the first zillionth of a second. Recent astronomical measurements suggest that not only is the Universe continuing to expand, but that it seems to be expanding at an ever-increasing rate. How do you reconcile these two ideas? You can't.

This is actually one of the points that stimulated the theorization of "dark matter" and "dark energy" amongst the astrophysics community.

To me.. there are some problems here. To begin with, I wouldn't classify the notion of black holes as "junk science". Certainly there are a lot of things which have yet to be proven about them, but there are literally *reams* of hard scientific data supporting the existence of black holes. I'll confess, I'm no physicist either, but from what I've seen and read, the existence of black holes, or at least a similar phenomenon, is pretty significantly supported by the data. Black holes are, however, considered still to be a theory, not a "law", so it means that science is quite prepared to revisit the notion as more data becomes available.

In terms of Einsteinian Relativity.... this, too, is a "theory".. not a "law".. and indeed, there are problems with it. To begin with, observations made by astronomers in the last 4 or 5 years have shown that the speed of light in a vacuum, Einstein's fundamental basis of calculation "C-squared", is *not* constant... it varies, seemingly inexplicably, depending upon what region of space it happens to be traveling through. And laboratory experiments have shown that light can be slowed down, and even *stopped*, without losing its cohesiveness "as light"...

Einsteinian Relativity also breaks down when one approaches the Quantum level.. a unification of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics was something Einstein himself pursued unsuccessfully in the last years of his life, and failure to achieve it was his greatest regret. And it can also be shown that Relativity breaks down on a macro-scale when one applies certain extreme levels of energetics to an environment.

So ultimately, if the notion of "Black Holes" are "junk science", simply because their mechanics and existence cannot be ultimately and completely "proven" to the "gold standard", then so too is Relativity Theory, and indeed, just about all of the advances made in physics in the last hundred years.

Obviously, this isn't the case in terms of the real-world progression of knowledge.. but it is certainly important to note that *all* of this stuff is still considered "theory", unlike the "laws" of classical physics (some of which are, in themselves, actually still debatable, btw), which means that they are accepted as "good enough working models until we either "prove them to the gold standard" or acquire new data that demands they be amended.

If I might digress a moment, regarding this whole notion of "junk science"...

I tend to have somewhat of a problem with this label being tossed around as it is, primarily because I feel it is used to stifle and discredit avenues of research that are "politically unpopular" to a "mainstream" that is increasingly censored and controlled by corporate business interests. I will confess that personally, my motivations and interests in various fields of scientific inquiry are much more along the lines of the Victorian scientists, with the question "What if" being paramount, and a desire to try new and often highly unconventional approaches to solving practical problems... but here's the main bit..

Science has, in large part, been driven by none other than Science Fiction over the last century. Literally thousands of technological inventions upon which our modern world has become dependent first saw their birth in the fertile imaginations of fiction writers, whose works inspired "real-world" scientists to actually sit down and *build* these things. If we simply limit the notions of "science" to what can be "proven to the gold standard", and dismiss the rest to the realms of "junk science" or "pseudoscience", we stifle the potential for nonstandard breakthroughs that may indeed become the "hard science fact" of tomorrow.

Sure, there's a lot of crap out there. Even as an enthusiastic fan of the weird and unconventional, I recognize this. But I also fervently believe that even this utter crap needs to be examined and rigorously evaluated in an unbiased fashion, just to make *sure* that it's crap before dismissing it. This is something that modern science steadfastly *refuses* to undertake, much to its, and our, detriment. Even if, out of thousands upon thousands of "crap science" bits that are debunked in a rigorous and unbiased experimental fashion, only one single significant breakthrough is found, then the process is well worth the undertaking. And indeed, if mere speculative fiction can inspire "real science" innovations, might not an unconventional approach utilized in some "crap science" claim prove useful if applied in a different set of circumstances more in-line with notions of "scientific convention?"

Something indeed to consider, I think.

Anyway.. thus endeth the digression..

On the math bits.. I can't really wrap my head around the utility of the notion of i, Larry.. I was unable to in highschool algebra, and I still can't.. lol Can you perhaps explain to me how entertaining the notion that "an imaginary number whose square is -1" might prove useful in a practical sense?

I mean, to me it kind of falls into Douglas Adams notion of the "recipreversexcluson", (a number that can only be defined as being anything *but* itself), or the as-yet-unnamed class of imaginary numbers that you could multiply infinity by to gain any given number of an infinite set that provides the inverse proof for 1 divided by 0 = infinity. ie, an interesting exercise in mental masturbation, but essentially non-usable for anything practical.

Can you perhaps cast some light upon the notion for me? Math isn't my strong suit.

I just want to comment black holes.

Look at it like this.

Everything has an opposite.

Even our universe.

Because a black hole isn't even in our universe.

And everything we discover HAS to be there. When we first discovered whirlpools in the oceans, we thought that they were dangerous and not to any good. When we found out more about them they was nessesary for life, we wouldn't be here without them. So, without black holes, no universe. (even if we haven't discovered yet)

Druegan raised a number of questions about the physics. I'll answer them as best I can, one question per posting. Caveat: I'm an unemployed chemist, not a physicist.

The main point that I was trying to make is that the theories of the Big Bang and of Black Holes are mutually exclusive. One or both theories are junk science. Why not use the more neutral term "incorrect", rather than "junk science"? Because BOTH theories are being palmed off to the Great Unwashed (that's us) as being valid. That's intellectually dishonest. And it would be intellectually dishonest for me to simply say that I disagree with the mainstream view, and leave it at that.

The Big Bang theory is more generally accepted than the theory of Black Holes. And when physicists are speaking among themselves in their cones of silence, they refer to the theory of Black Holes as being a 'domain solution', which is a fallback position just in case the Big Bang theory goes the way of Polywater.

Both theories have other weaknesses. If you like, we can discuss these in greater detail.

About theories and laws. According to the cartoon version of "THE Scientific Method" that we were exposed to in high school (and perhaps in social science classes), theories and laws are only QUANTITATIVELY different, with the latter having a higher degree of certainty than the former.

HOGWASH! Laws are about the FORMS of regularities. Example: Snell's Law states that for a given substance and for a beam of light passing through that substance, the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction have a fixed mathematical relationship.

Guess what happened to Snell's Law when substances like calcite, which have a property called birefringence--or double refraction--were examined. Absolutely nothing happened! Why? Snell's Law, like many other laws, is a useful tautology. Snell's Law is true, except when it's not true! This is what I mean by forms of regularities. In that sense, Snell's law is just as valid today as it was 100 years ago.

Laws are just one notch above natural history type science. Example: detailed field studies of the mating habits of banana slugs.

In contrast, theories are models that we create in order to make sense of our data from experiments and other types of observation. Because of the creative insights involved in articulating theories, they are far more interesting than laws. Moreover theories often make predictions that go well beyond the original experiment. And it's fun to explore those possibilities as well.

Here's an irony: When viewed from the perspective of fallible generalizations, theories can be MORE accurate than laws! Example: Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity makes essentially the same predictions for objects that observers perceive to be slow-moving as does Newton's Law. But for objects that observers perceive to be extremely fast-moving, Einstein's Special THEORY of Relativity makes more accurate predictions!

Larry wrote:Druegan raised a number of questions about the physics. I'll answer them as best I can, one question per posting. Caveat: I'm an unemployed chemist, not a physicist.

The main point that I was trying to make is that the theories of the Big Bang and of Black Holes are mutually exclusive. One or both theories are junk science. Why not use the more neutral term "incorrect", rather than "junk science"? Because BOTH theories are being palmed off to the Great Unwashed (that's us) as being valid. And that's intellectually dishonest.

The Big Bang theory is more generally accepted than the theory of Black Holes. And when physicists are speaking among themselves in their cones of silence, they refer to the theory of Black Holes as being a 'domain solution', which is a fallback position just in case the Big Bang theory goes the way of Polywater.

Well, as one of the great Unwashed.. (hmm.. perhaps I *should* shower soon... ) here's me just playing "devil's advocate"..

1. Black holes produce ejecta. Runs counter to most notions about what a "black hole" is, I know.. but astronomers have documented bursts of energy being *emitted* from black holes. They don't know, last I read, what causes this, but as an unemployed wizard, it stands to reason to me that it would be entirely possible for certain energetic densities to be able to overwhelm the gravity of a black hole and allow something to escape, within very specific sets of circumstances. A black hole has to have a sort of "set" level of gravity, even if that gravity increases perpetually with the continual accumulation of mass... at any given point, the point-energy of that gravitation could, theoretically, be surmounted by an even greater instance of point-energy. What would provide that energy is another matter, but then, we don't exactly "know" what the black hole would be in the first place.. lol

2. Based on this, partially.. and also just due to the extremity of circumstance involved... beyond the concept of "whole bunch of stuff packed into a mathematical point", there's almost no certitude of functional similarity between the conditions existing within a black hole and the conditions existing in that zillionth of a second of the Big Bang. Certainly, we have this "cartoon" notion of conditions in both phenomena, but that certainly isn't enough data to either prove or disprove the notion of "mutual exclusivity" with regards to the theories.

For instance.. our "cartoon notion" suggests that black holes are "infinitely deep"... ie, that they can just keep sucking in matter endlessly... well, perhaps this is so, and perhaps it isn't.. When you get into nuclear science.. if you crush a quantity of just about *any* material past a certain "critical density" level, it explodes violently as the atomic bonds tear apart.. or at the very least it "disassociates energetically".. Just because we have never seen an instance of a black hole "energetically inverting" doesn't mean, theoretically, that it cannot. And, when you start dealing with the bizarreness of incredibly energetic or quantum environments, there is still a *tremendous* uncertainty, even among the most brilliant minds in the scientific disciplines, about what the "rules of reality" actually *ARE* under such circumstances.. We have guesses of possible ideas, but hell, it takes the full effort of our technological advances to even begin to simulate what goes on in the core of a single *star*, much less what conditions might exist in the extremities of a phenomenon that theoretically devours entire galaxies, or contained all the energy and matter of the entire universe within a mathematical point for a gazillionth of a second..

Point being, what we wind up with are two theories in which the details of our conceptions are problematic with regards to co-existence... but absolutely no certitude regarding either which can claim them to be truly "mutually exclusive". Because of this fundamental uncertainty, I don't consider any of this to be approaching "intellectual dishonesty" of the sort that still maintains in classrooms around the world that "columbus discovered america" or that is asserted by corporate sponsored scientists that we can only get 50-60 miles per gallon out of an internal combustion engine.

Larry wrote:About theories and laws. According to the cartoon version of "THE Scientific Method" that we were exposed to in high school (and perhaps in social science classes), theories and laws are only QUANTITATIVELY different, with the latter having a higher degree of certainty than the former.

HOGWASH! Laws are about the FORMS of regularities. Example: Snell's Law states that for a given substance and for a beam of light passing through that substance, the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction have a fixed mathematical relationship.

Guess what happened to Snell's Law when substances like calcite, which have a property called birefringence--or double refraction--were examined. Absolutely nothing happened! Why? Snell's Law, like many other laws, is a useful tautology. Snell's Law is true, except when it's not true! This is what I mean by forms of regularities. In that sense, Snell's law is just as valid today as it was 100 years ago.

Ah, I'd forgotten that bit.. Point well taken, Larry. It's been so long since I've delved into the specifics of the Scientific Method that I'd forgotten that bit on the functional definitions of Theories and Laws and reverted to the cartoon version. Thanks for sorting me out

Druegan wrote:

In terms of Einsteinian Relativity.... this, too, is a "theory".. not a "law".. and indeed, there are problems with it. To begin with, observations made by astronomers in the last 4 or 5 years have shown that the speed of light in a vacuum, Einstein's fundamental basis of calculation "C-squared", is *not* constant... it varies, seemingly inexplicably, depending upon what region of space it happens to be traveling through. And laboratory experiments have shown that light can be slowed down, and even *stopped*, without losing its cohesiveness "as light"...

Here's a tidbit from Scientific Literacy 101: If your scientific instrument has sufficient readout resolution (not the same thing as accuracy), and you make the same measurement 10 times, you'll always get 10 different answers! Why? Because ALL measurements--as opposed to counting--have uncertainties.

Your claim about the variability of measurements of C is vacuously true. A better question about C would be: Can the INEVITABLE discrepancies between the C-measurements made in Eastern Bonya and those made in Lower Slobovia be reasonably explained in terms of estimated measurement uncertainty? Using appropriate statistical techniques, if you can reject that hypothesis with 95% certainty, then you're probably on to something. Otherwise you're just reading tea leaves.

And yes, the speed of light does vary, depending on the medium that it's travelling through. But C is the speed of light in a vacuum, not in air.

Can i be a bit cynical here?

Natural science is too limited to give us any other answers then..........

1.Possible answers
2.Thinkable answers

And temporary answers.

Why?

Because natural science is nothing other then "our own way to measure and see things". We haven't even something to compare with, have we? We can't even be sure that things that we call "physical reality" is what we think it is. It's just our way to experience it.

Until that we get something to compare with, we can't be sure of anything.