Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: ThinkPlease; Gary Boldwater
There isn't observed quantization of redshift, no matter how much Tifft can massage the data. Why hasn't he released a new catalog in the past 11 years?

There has been observed quantization of quasar redshift for well over 15 years. That is, it has been recognized as such. Looking through older data reveals the same.

So unmistakable that none of the associations have ever definitively been shown to actually be anything more than line of sight projections.

Yes, they've definitively been shown to be more than (especially other than) line of sight projections. Not only are they near galaxies more often than could be predicted based on random distribution (which would have to be the case if the quasars were way out on the edge of the visible universe as they had been described, unless you'd like to posit something to explain their clustering around (relatively) nearby galaxies), but they are 1. found in association with particular types of galaxies, 2. are aligned across those galaxies, often in pairs and in pairs of pairs, and 3. the nearer the quasar to the galaxy, the higher the redshift. These repeated and different types of observations occurring again and again in concert defy chance association in any way that it is commonly used in astronomy.

Not only that, the number density of "associations" aren't indistinguishable from the number density of "associations" that are generated from an isotropic and homogeneous population of quasars and galaxies. Strange, eh?

Ha ha. Nice try, but no winner. If you divide the total number of cities over 1,000,000 in the U.S. by the total number of counties and then describe the yearly number of murders in those 1,000,000+ cities by the average distribution of the total population throughout the total number of counties, you'd end up saying that there was no association between city size and number of murders: they're all spread out equally. But this happened because of what you did by averaging the total number of murders in a small number of counties throughout all the counties of which most had no or few murders. This is a misuse of statistics.

If, on the other hand, you're saying that there are so many different types of associations that exist that one type of association is negligible in comparison to the total number of relationships that actually exist and so is rather meaningless, we could just as easily say that the relationship of a robber to his victim is just one of many thousands of different types of relationships that exist between human beings and, being such a small fraction of all such relationships, is rather inconsequential and of no great significance. However, explain that to the victim as well as to sociologists who know that the relationship is a significant one both in terms of what it actually is and in terms of its association with larger population centers and what that can tell us about the nature of human relationships.

Maybe because the findings are not good science, and never will be good science?

It's not merely the interpretations that are being suppressed, but the observations themselves, as well as the attempt to make more such observations, are being suppressed.

Having worked within the current paradigm (MA, astronomy), I can say that the BB interpretation has a lot going for it.

Having obtained a Ph.D. in an experimental versus a relatively observational science such as astronomy, I know how much stock to put in current paradigms.* Compared to the biological sciences, the relative paucity in astronomy of experimental data (and the correspondingly greater power of contradictory data to undermine paradigms and careers) combined with the relative scarcity of researchers and instruments and research money goes a long way toward explaining the relatively great emphasis placed on "paradigms" in astronomy and the extraordinary lengths to which people will go--including their extremely tight control over the instruments necessary for doing the observation--toward protecting their turf from competing paradigms and the observational data that would support them.

I always wonder how Arp etal would interpret the findings of the Gunn-Peterson trough, a prediction of the BB paradigm that was found to exist in a distant quasar recently. Unfortunately, they appear to be silent on the issue...

Or else you appear to have been sufficiently unmotivated to look (Apeiron , Vol. 9, No. 2, April 2002).
Even a small amount of diffuse neutral hydrogen would produce a smooth absorbing trough shortward of a QSO's Lyman-alpha emission line. This is called the Gunn-Peterson effect, and is rarely seen, implying that most hydrogen in the universe has been re-ionized. A hydrogen Gunn-Peterson trough is now predicted to be present at a redshift z ~ 6.1. [45] Observations of high-redshift quasars near z = 6 briefly appeared to confirm this prediction. However, a galaxy lensed by a foreground cluster has now been observed at z = 6.56, prior to the supposed reionization epoch and at a time when the Big Bang expects no galaxies to be visible yet. Moreover, if only a few galaxies had turned on by this early point, their emission would have been absorbed by the surrounding hydrogen gas, making these early galaxies invisible. [34] So the lensed galaxy observation falsifies this prediction and the theory it was based on. Another problem example: Quasar PG 0052+251 is at the core of a normal spiral galaxy. The host galaxy appears undisturbed by the quasar radiation, which, in the Big Bang, is supposed to be strong enough to ionize the intergalactic medium. [46]

[34] (2002), http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~cowie/z6/z6.html
[45] Astrophysics J. 530, 1-16.
[46] (2002), http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/35/A.html

In addition, although an observation of an example of the Gunn-Peterson effect does not inevitably lead to the conclusion that it had occurred only because there had occurred the Big Bang, a single unambiguous instance of interaction between a high redshift quasar and low or lower redshift objects would seriously damage the foundation upon which the Big Bang "paradigm" rests. There has been observed more than one such interaction. The reaction by Big Bangers? Ignore it or ridicule it or just whistle by the graveyard.

*I know this because the lab in which I work has solid experimental evidence that runs directly counter to a current paradigm in our field. At conferences, other researchers in the same field have gotten up and screamed at our P.I. or stomped out of the presentation. However, graduate students from this lab have been offered post-doc positions at some of the very best labs in the field.
58 posted on 12/29/2002 1:38:52 PM PST by aruanan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies ]


To: aruanan
There has been observed quantization of quasar redshift for well over 15 years. That is, it has been recognized as such. Looking through older data reveals the same.

Care to present a reference?

Yes, they've definitively been shown to be more than (especially other than) line of sight projections. Not only are they near galaxies more often than could be predicted based on random distribution (which would have to be the case if the quasars were way out on the edge of the visible universe as they had been described, unless you'd like to posit something to explain their clustering around (relatively) nearby galaxies), but they are 1. found in association with particular types of galaxies, 2. are aligned across those galaxies, often in pairs and in pairs of pairs, and 3. the nearer the quasar to the galaxy, the higher the redshift. These repeated and different types of observations occurring again and again in concert defy chance association in any way that it is commonly used in astronomy.

So definitive that you can show me all of those examples. Great, thanks. I've seen Arp's claims, but he's never definitively shown that they are nothing more than simple projections.

Ha ha. Nice try, but no winner. If you divide the total number of cities over 1,000,000 in the U.S. by the total number of counties and then describe the yearly number of murders in those 1,000,000+ cities by the average distribution of the total population throughout the total number of counties, you'd end up saying that there was no association between city size and number of murders: they're all spread out equally. But this happened because of what you did by averaging the total number of murders in a small number of counties throughout all the counties of which most had no or few murders. This is a misuse of statistics.

Nice straw man. Your example is a blazing example of bad science. Please come up with another straw man to knock down. Let me put it in a way you can understand. Quasars don't cluster around galaxies. If Arp's hypothesis holds, then logically they should. They don't. That's the first of many problems with Arp's theories.

It's not merely the interpretations that are being suppressed, but the observations themselves, as well as the attempt to make more such observations, are being suppressed.

Not really. It's funny how much of Arp's work gets published. For someone who's work has been "suppressed", he has an awful lot of publications in ApJ and A&A.

Having obtained a Ph.D. in an experimental versus a relatively observational science such as astronomy, I know how much stock to put in current paradigms.* Compared to the biological sciences, the relative paucity in astronomy of experimental data (and the correspondingly greater power of contradictory data to undermine paradigms and careers) combined with the relative scarcity of researchers and instruments and research money goes a long way toward explaining the relatively great emphasis placed on "paradigms" in astronomy and the extraordinary lengths to which people will go--including their extremely tight control over the instruments necessary for doing the observation--toward protecting their turf from competing paradigms and the observational data that would support them.

Have you considered that bad science is a factor on the part of the people not getting time?

There has been observed more than one such interaction. The reaction by Big Bangers? Ignore it or ridicule it or just whistle by the graveyard.

I don't think so. Since there are no unambigouous results, it's pretty easy to ignore them, or bury them in the bad science graveyard.

71 posted on 12/30/2002 6:09:08 PM PST by ThinkPlease
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 58 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson