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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Jan 2004

Added more information about Arp's theory. Also removed links that were in the main text. Also don't see the connection between non-standard cosmology and the solar neutrino problem.

I readded the links [just easier to have them all listed together] ... and the solar neutrino problem is related to the general "problems" of the "standard"....

The other thing that I removed is that Arp's observations that correlate quasars and normal galaxies would invalidate big bang. Suppose Arp's observations were correct. So quasars and normal galaxies are connected. So what? Quasar redshifts are due to the Flubberizoch effect, and don't invalidate Hubble flow of normal galaxies.

User:Roadrunner

That's not what, I think, Arp argues ... he argues that Hubble's law would be incorrect (from the material I've seen ... though I could be wrong).
Sincerely, JDR
Reddi, you are not incorrect. Arp's observations are almost always taken to invalidate the Hubble expression. -Ionized
Taken by whom? One reason most astrophysicists I know don't take Arp seriously is that no one can figure out why his observations invalidates Hubble flow or the Big Bang. He claims that it invalidates the Big Bang, but if you can find a place where he spells out that logic, I'd be appreciative (I'm not being sarcastic. I really would be interested if you could point me to something where Arp explains why his results invalidate the big bang. I've never been able to understand this and neither has anyone else I've talked to.) -RR
It has been a while since I read his books and I do not recall if he actually gives a detailed account as to why the Hubble expression is invalid, or if he just states his observations and implicitly hints and assumes that the Hubble expression is invalidly used. As I do not have time to go through and re-read his books right now, I urge that you do so. If he gives a detailed account anywhere, it would be in his two books: "Quasars, Redshifts, and Controversy" and "Seeing Red". If you have not read those books (at least the sections on the redshift and other observations, not including variable mass as that is a different issue) that is most definitely the first place to begin. I can not make any accurate assumptions about how you view the redshift, so I will not attempt to vividly explain his ideas to you. But it seems that for some reason the idea that a high-redshift object physically connected to a low-redshift object, does not in your mind invalidate the idea that redshift is a measure of recession velocity (the standard Hubble interpretation.) But if two connected objects should be moving at drastically different velocities, why do we not see a major change in their relative orientation or size when looked at, say over a 40 year interval? Most likely, anything I say here is far from a complete description, and will probably be viewed as wrong or misleading anyhow, so I will go no further. Like I said I havent read Arp's books recently so I do not recall his detailed rebuttal, or if he even gave one (although I can't imagine why he would go on such a crusade without ever explaining himself.) Please read his books. -Ionized 19:53, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC) (As a side note, any chance you would consider posting your replies after my posts, rather then directly in the middle of them? By the time you are done posting in the middle of mine, they end up almost completely incoherent, and I have to go through and add initials to all of my newly fragmented paragraphs. I just want to be civil with you from now on. Thank you.)-ionized
As a follow up... I am home from work and am now able to peruse Arps books I mentioned above. Indeed, Arp does not go straight into how the Big Bang is "invalidated", but rather spreads his arguments out throughout each book. This is most likely so that the reader maintains interest, and is forced to peruse all of his arguments before jumping to any one conclusion. However, it still stands that if you want to know what Arp is thinking, reading his books, starting with "Quasars, Redshifts, and Controversies", is most highly recommended. I purchased my copies through amazon.com, where you can also find used copies, for around $20 each. Also available at: http://redshift.vif.com/Apeiron%20Home.htm
One more note: it was Arp who in 1966 gave to the astronomical community the "Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies". His latest addition is the "Catalogue of Discordant Redshift Associations" published in 2003. -Ionized 02:30, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)
One other thing. Arp seems to think that it is a big deal that quasars seem to cluster around z=1.93. No one else does. One fun calculation is to calculate the redshift at which the Lyman alpha line first starts to be visible. One would expect that the point where a major UV line appears in visible, one should see a huge number of quasars. -RR
Please see note about redshift periodicities posted below -Ionized 16:25, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)
In fact, if one takes the time to read Hubble's original works, he is very skeptical of the expansion interpretation and only proposed some of his ideas because (at the time,) no other interpretation of redshift was available, other than Doppler. Nowadays there are other redshift mechanisms, whether or not they can be applied to astrophysical process is another story. -Ionized

People have tried. People have failed. -RR

But have they tried all? Also, who is to say there is not a mechanism that humans simply don't know about yet? -Ionized 19:53, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Certainly Arp proposes his own version of the redshift, and indeed claims to have invalidated the Big Bang with the empirical data alone. For more about Hubble, read his papers and books, and also you can find this article explaining some of the history: "Cautious revolutionaies: Maxwell, Planck, Hubble", Brush, S.G., Am. J. Phys., vol. 70, no. 2, pp 119-27, 2002. Ionized 03:03, Jan 31, 2004 (UTC)
[I added the link to Cautious revolutionaies ... JDR ]
Didnt even know there was a copy online.. thanks JDR. -Ionized 02:03, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

Oct 2004

Made some changes to the page to really show why astronomers don't accept non-standard cosmologies. It would be a shame if someone were to read this page and suddenly think that there was no reason for an acceptance of the standard model of cosmology. There are reasons that Lerner, Arp, and others who object to standard cosmology are dismissed, and I tried to show them as much as I can.

Feb 2004

I'll try posting at the end.

The problem with Arp's logic is that even if he were to demostrate that quasar redshifts are not due to the Hubble flow, that wouldn't say anything about the redshifts of normal galaxies. There is a lot of evidence that redshifts of normal galaxies are distance related (type Ia supernova) just to name one of about five (Tully-Fisher relation to name another).

As far as trying all sorts of redshift mechanisms. Yes it is possible that someone will come up with a new original redshift mechanism that will explain the galaxies, but the trouble is that there is so much data and the constraints on the mechanism are so severe, that most people don't see the point in trying. What is likely to happen is that you spend a lot of time and effort in trying to investigate a mechanism, and then after spending several months thinking about it, you find some deadly flaw. The problem then is that you've just wasted your time because a paper that says that a novel mechanism for redshift *doesn't* work is not publishable.

(That's one thing that keep in mind in doing literature searchs. For example, you will find almost no recent papers that try to refute Arp, because a paper that tries to refute Arp is so uninteresting that it is non-publishable. This is particularly a problem since Arp does a bad job of presenting the case against him.

I also suspect this is why there are no papers which use plasma cosmology to calculate coorelation functions. No one can get anything that looks even remotely reasonable, and a paper arguing that plasma cosmology is *wrong* is basically not publishable because it's not interesting.)

Of course, this is how scientific revolutions happen. The odds that the conventional redshift interpretation is wrong is low, but the odds that *something* people are certain of is wrong is quite high. A perfect example of this is between 1963-1967 when continental drift shook the geological community.

However, even in these cases what usually triggers the revolution is new data (in the case of continental drift it was the Mid-Atlantic Ridge). If one wants to look at plasma cosmology, my suggestion would be to not try to fit the model to the current data, but instead argue that the current data is *wrong*. Something that would get attention is a paper that says that plasma cosmology predicts this weird effect that no one has looked for, but if you turn on a detector at YYYY, you ought to see XXXX. Something that occurs to me is that if the CMB is not primordial, then one should be able to see structure behind the CMB, and this structure ought to be much more clear if you have better detectors.

Keep in mind that the thing that made big bang the standard cosmology was that Gamov predicted the CMB decades before anyone detected it. User:Roadrunner

As to the topic about "paper that says that a novel mechanism for [insert favorite target] *doesn't* work is not publishable, see: Martin, Brian, "Strategies for dissenting scientists". Society for Scientific Exploration. Journal of Scientific Exploration, Volume 12 No 4. 1998. (PDF file format)
IMO, solving problems and developing alternatives is not "just wasted time" ... but then many think that pathological sciences haven't contributed anything .... JDR
[Peak:] It was first detected and measured in 1941, but it was called the "'rotational' temperature of interstellar space". See [www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state.edu/ ~ryden/ast682ps/feb12.ps], top of page 3.
Peak 06:02, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There also a final irony in all of this. If you take the galaxies in Hubble's original data, and then use the most recent best data for distances and redshifts, you get a scatter plot with no descernible trend. Essentially, there is no evidence for Hubble's law in Hubble's data. -User:Roadrunner

Just a note on the quantized redshift comment about Arp being the only one - It was Geoffrey Burbidge who first noticed the periodicity of z=1.95, and throughout the years a small group of others also analyzed copious amounts data coming up with a list of prefered z values. As discussed in "Quasars, Redshifts, and Controversies" the group is: Burbidge and Burbidge (1967), Karlsson (1971,73,77), Barnothy and Barnothy (1976), Depaquit, Pecker, Vigier (1984). The list is as follows:
0.30, 0.60, 0.96, 1.41, 1.96. It was identified by Arp that there are other periodicity groupings as well, and that certains groups of quasars exhibit certain ranges of periodicity. One more thing, after spending most of the night re-reading instead of sleeping, I can add additional comments about Arp's books. Arps first book, "Q,R,C", focuses primarily on the observations, with little emphasis at all on his "variable-mass theory". It is the second book, "Seeing Red", which gives more emphasis to the theory side, along with an updated list of observations that where not included in the first book. I recommend you start with the first, it is written in a different style (ie, he seems much more focused on the observations, and less upset at the standard community than in the second book.)
RR, again, I appreciate the dialog we have obtained. I much prefer working with you rather than against you. -Ionized 15:44, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)

I should not be posting this yet (because my analysis is rather non-existent, and the parts of it in my head are fragmented) but after re-reading several chapters of Arp last night, I am reminded why I think there is a connection between Plasma Cosmology (PC) and Arp's data. Throughout his first book, he is giving accounts of quasars being ejected from the nuclei of active galaxies, along filamentary structures. Arp, at the time, and possibly still today, does not see how current physics can explain some of the phenomena, which is why he is a large proponent of variable-mass and the steady-state interpretation of matter creation. What I think he might be missing is that his observations are almost perfect descriptions of what some (obviously including myself) would consider plasma related phenomena, happening on the large scale. He describes filaments (often called jets, a remnant of the non-plasma view,) along with different radiation amounts and bandwidths, all of which when seen by a laboratory scientist studying plasma, are different stages in the evolution of a plasma. He can not account for why a low redshift nuclei would emit a high redshift object, coupled with radiation from various bandwidths. But if you look in a plasma laboratory here on earth, you see the very similar phenomena happening on a much smaller time and space scale. Only recently has there been progress in understanding the redshifting mechanisms in the laboratory. It is obvious that, as you say, the standard data may be the incorrect data to use in order to verify plasma processes in the center of galaxies. However, using Arp's non-standard data, it is more obvious that plasma may play a larger role than is currently accepted. As I said, I should not continue discussing this now. However, I am tempted to resume writing a paper that I was working on 2 years ago. If I do, I would invite your peer review. -Ionized 16:43, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)

Just an amendment to my above paragraph. I should not claim that Arp does not see plasma processes as a useful approach to his data. In private correspondance, he admitted that some plasma models may be necessary in order to make sense of the ejection process. But where we disagreed is that a "variable-mass" plasma would be needed. In Arp's opinion, the redshift effect is due to the lower mass of the freshly ejected material, which gains mass with time (in accord with Machian physics.) In my opinion, the redshift could be due to, for now I will say 'other' means. It may not be necessary to invoke a variable mass into the plasma process. So to discredit Arp's theory completely is not fair on my part, for he CAN account for why a low-redshift nuclei might eject a high-redshift quasar, he simply accounts for it from a different viewpoint, one which is even further removed from standard physics than that of the plasma cosmology. At this point, I can make no claim that he is in fact wrong, however intuition tells me that there may be a simpler way to account for his data. Ok, enough typing, now i must finish a quantum mechanics problem set which is due tommorrow.. yippity skippity.. -Ionized 18:00, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)

Of course, in no way am I the first one to think that it is plasma phenomena governing galaxies... Re-reading papers by Peratt, and also Alfvens books, it seems most of what I said in the above 2 paragraphs has been stated already, one way or another, in far better detail. In fact, there are two main reasons I stopped writing a summary paper: 1) its safe to assume only a couple journals would consider publishing it ("Astrophysics and Space Science", "IEEE Trans. Plasma Science", or Apeiron) 2) most of what I would have to say has already been said before, in great detail (except maybe the connections with the most recent lab based redshift mechanisms) - Ionized 22:27, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)

A quote from above "So quasars and normal galaxies are connected. So what? Quasar redshifts are due to the Flubberizoch effect, and don't invalidate Hubble flow of normal galaxies. -User:Roadrunner" What is the Flubberizoch effect? I searched journals, databases, the web, and nothing returns a hit. Please give a reference so that I may investigate it. -Ionized 17:42, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)


Awaiting citation

The following parenthetical remark has been been moved from the preamble because, although it may be true, some citation is needed:

(which may not be true, since steady state models correctly predicted the proper value of the CMB long before Gamow and collaborators)

Citation is needed because there are plenty of quotations such as this one:

"Unfortunately, the Steady-State theory finds it virtually impossible to explain either the light elements or the CMB, both of which require the universe to have been much different in the past than it is today, namely very hot. For this reason, all but the most rabid fanatics gave up the Steady-State theory around 1965 with the discovery of the CMB."

(Attributed to Tony Rothman, General Relativity professor at Harvard.)

Peak 07:34, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Though I didn't put that in (anon editor 24.236 did) ... I'll look up a reference ... JDR 10:21, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
As a follow up ... it seem that Edward Guillaume, Paul Hertz, Erhard Regener (1933), and Arthur Stanley Eddington ("The Internal Constitution of the Stars". Diffuse Matter in Space. 1926.) predicted the proper value of the CMB. This was on the basis of a steady-state Universe in equilibrium of an infinite duration. Also Fritz Zwicky, Erwin Findlay-Freundlich, and Max Born did so [on a alternate basis]. More to come ... JDR 13:13, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

My abstract database is currently not functioning (upgrading linux and havent had time to redo the mySQL tables..) But I have found more than one paper describing the histroy of the cmb predictions and as soon as I get my database back up, Ill search for the citations and post at least the important one. One important paper I found showed how values where predicted (not nec. by "steady-staters", but also not discluding them) throughout the 1900's, and that these values where much closer to the correct value than those predicted by Gamow and collaborators. The same paper also detailed the history of the predictions by Gamow, showing how they actually diverged from the correct value as the years progressed. Anyhow, give me time I will work on the database over spring break. I find almost all my papers using INSPEC and the Nasa Astrophysics Data System, you just have to use the right keywords to find the non-standard ones. Ionized 02:51, Jan 31, 2004 (UTC)

In the meantime, I felt this page needed some fixing up. I changed the order of some parts, fixed a lot of grammar, inserted more accurate wording, etc. This page now better reflects what is meant by a non-standard cosmology. Im going to do something with the very first paragraph someday, it seems it could use better wording. Ionized 22:35, Jan 31, 2004 (UTC) --follow up: reworded the entire Preamble

Citation: I have my bibliography database running again. On the comment about Gamow's predictions diverging from correct values, and non-standard cosmologies predicting correct CBR values (keep in mind back when the non-standard models made these predictions, they where not considered non-standard,) please see - Assis, A.K.T. and Neves, M.C.D., "The redshift revisited", Astrophys. Space Sci., Vol. 227, #1-2, pp13-24, 1995 Ionized 04:29, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)

Grammar/spelling notes

We should agree on a standard for capitalization of Big Bang and plasma cosmology. Sometime I use capitols, sometimes not, and I wonder what the convention should be. Im inconsistent with plasma cosmology too, but I think usually it is not nec. to capitolize it. Also, I was editing when peak was, and I accidentally saved over his fixes. So I went back to what he fixed, THEN continued my edits. EXCEPT for one thing: since "alternative" is actually defined in the article, we should use "alternate" to describe the steady-state, because it does not fall under the articles definition of alternative. Ionized 21:40, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)

[Peak:] The Big Bang "event" and "theory" should be referred to using capital letters. One reason is that when we speak of the Big Bang, we're speaking of a named event, like "the Fourth of July holiday" (as opposed to: the fourth of July holiday"). Similarly, we might write: "Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance Theory is a theory of cognitive dissonance." Peak 05:01, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The confusion with alternate <-> alternative is cleared up. It was my own mistake to think that alternative was being defined when in fact it wasnt. Removed the section heading altogethor as it was unnecessary and wasnt actually defining anything. The contents of that section are still in the same place, and convey the same point, without the heading. sorry Peak, should have thought harder about it before changing your edit Ionized
When someone sees the light, it is cause for celebration, not apologies! Peak 05:01, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)


Dark energy non-standard?

I don't really understand why dark energy is included here. While it is a very new idea (in its modern, repulsive form), the observational evidence for it is sufficiently compelling that most working cosmologists now accept it as part of the standard model of the universe (the so-called "Concordance Cosmology"). I've rewritten the dark energy section (which seemed to be deeply confused between dark energy and dark matter, another now-standard idea) but I'm not sure it should be here at all. -- Bth

I don't know why it is here either. But I didn't want to remove it myself as I had already revamped the rest of the article, and just kind of stopped. It seems to me that the whole 'dark' scenario has indeed been taken up by the standard, and is not a key ingredient in the usual non-standard models, hence should be removed from the non-standard page. Now that you have re-written the section, it seems better, but it should still be clarified as to why it is included in the article. If by chance it was somehow there to lend discredit to the standard, it should be removed. -Ionized 02:08, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)
Another note- in fact, if you are a Plasma Cosmologist, dark matter and dark energy is basically a myth that arose from negligence of electro-magnetic forces on the large scale. -Ionized 02:13, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)
Oh no, I'm definitely not a Plasma Cosmologist. But the dark stuff is pretty much standard these days, so I think I'll revamp that part of this article soon. But not immediately; I want to write a page on Concordance cosmology first (mainstream cosmologists have pretty much settled on a model of the universe now -- 70% Dark Energy, 27% dark matter, 3% baryonic matter -- though there are still plenty of unanswered questions) and this material or sthg similar could probably go there. --Bth 09:31, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I see the page has been nicely trashed again, to make the big bang stand out again. WTF, this page is NOT about the big bang. You know, i dont care anymore. have it your way, you have removed perfectly valid sentences and replaced with trash. i give up on this -Ionized 17:00, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

I am SOOO tempted to do a revert. So im just warning you now. revert.. revert... Back to the coherent version that talked less about big bang and more about non-standard!!!! -Ionized 22:26, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

Is general time dilation real?

Despite that the effect is known since 1985 there is no official agreement on its viability because of seemingly not enough cosmological redshift for the expansion of space and the GTD together. But is it a good enough reason for denying the reality of the effect if it is required by conservation of energy? Isn't it just replacing the conservation of energy with expansion of the universe for no good reason at all? Jim 19:25, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Interesting new film

This is not a plug, just a heads up. I've been following this topic closely since Lerner published "The Big Bang Never Happened" in 1990 (with a title like that, who am I to leave it on the library shelf unread?!) and monitoring this and related pages for a while.

I've just bought the DVD of the newly released Universe film by Randall Meyers from http://www.universe-film.com/ which nicely summarises much of the dissenting opinion from within cosmology and astrophysics, eg. Peratt, Lerner, Alfven, Arp, Hoyle, Assis, Narlikar, Pecker, et al.

Whilst I'm not necessarily buying all of the viewpoints expressed, I found a couple of particularly interesting points that arise in the film.

One is Lerner's concise explanation in under 2 minutes of how the CMB temperature and smoothness can be explained as the absorption and reemission of radiation by dust as IR, and how that explanation predicts a more rapid distance-related decline of galaxy emission in the radio spectrum compared with IR (that is, at increasing distances, galaxies appear to emit less radio while their IR emission is held constant). This is the same effect as trying to see distant on-coming car headlights in a fog.

So he claims. The problem with that explanation is that if you have a dust model you'd expect to see some lumpiness due to the initial emission of the radiation and because the dust itself will be lumpy. Personally, I don't see how you can combine lumpy galaxies causes by EM, and not get huge amounts of non-lumpiness in the dust. An even bigger problem is polarization. It's really hard to see how you can get non-polarized radiation from reflection.


Another is the photographic and other data of Arp, brilliantly portrayed and jaw-dropping when seen in moving pictures, that shows the consistent relationship between quasar fields and nearby galaxies, in particular the decreasing redshift of the quasars with increasing distance from the associated galaxy.

Most astrophysicists think that Arp isn't selecting his data randomly.

Part of this sequence was the brightness/redshift chart for galaxies, which shows the strong relationship that Hubble deduced his distance law from, but the same chart for quasars shows NO SUCH RELATION.

And the standard explanation is that you don't get this relation with quasars because the quasars aren't standard candles.

We are forced to conclude that there is a non-distance component to quasar redshift, but it seems nobody wants to know.

Which there is. Quasars have wildly different brightnesses, and there are a huge number of

other effects.

Not really wanting to add fuel to fire here, but this whole issue seems to come down to dogmatism and a refusal to look down Galileo's telescope. If data do not fit our theory, then it is our duty to question everything, including all assumptions, until they do. Inventing ever more exotic epicycles with no supporting observational data just straps everyone to the hospital bed.

The problem here is that the movie presented one side of an argument. There are a lot of standard responses to these issues, and a lot of responses to the responses, and responses to the responses to the responses. It may be that non-standard cosmologists are right and most astronomers are wrong (i.e. see continental drift of an example in which a crackpot theory turned out to be right). However it is *NOT* the case that astrophysicists support standard cosmologies out of blind dogmatism.
One problem is that non-standard cosmologies don't form a single coherent theory and non-standard cosmologies disagree with each other as much as they do with standard cosmologies.

Roadrunner 17:52, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Cheers, Jonathan

Modifications

I reverted part of the preamble back to the more coherent explanation which i created months ago but had been subsequently censored by others. A link to the standard model (big bang) was added in the paragraph so that proponents of that theory will be happy, i hope. I also removed 2 disclaimers that where added by BB proponents while i was away. I tend to not add to the BB article any disclaimers (however i have added a very clear one in bold attention in the BB talk page,) i would appreciate it if BB props please respect this.-Ionized 16:24, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

Rearranged and renamed some section headings. How on earth an article on non-standard cosmology conatined only one main heading titled "standard cosmology", i will never understand. it is better now. I also removed a redundant section or two. -Ionized 16:44, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Changed it as follows:

1) The statement that a non-standard cosmology is not merely one that contradicts big bang is incorrect. The definition of non-standard cosmology is *any* cosmology that is not big bang.

2) The statement that recent developments have shaken belief in standard cosmology needs to be attributed. Most astrophysicists simply do not believe that recent observations have brought the big bang into question. (If you want to challenge that statement, we can do a survey of papers in ApJ or preprints in arxiv.org.)

Roadrunner 16:56, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I think the article is terrible because it does a horrible job surveying non-standard cosmologies. It spends *way* too much time talking about Arp, and doesn't mention some of the non-standard cosmologies that people are really interested in.

Most of the recent papers on non-standard cosmology I've read are actually on the QSSM model.

Roadrunner 17:16, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Removed this link which isn't about non-standard cosmology at all........


Also, I think the thing to do is to take the review of non-standard cosmology from Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics and incorporate it into wikipedia. That was a *really* good article.

The QSSM model needs to be expanded a lot because that it the non-standard cosmology that seems to have the most professional interest right now. QSSM has some good answers for nucleosynthesis issues, and also judging from the papers in archvix, they are the people who are most active in trying to deal with the new cosmological data that is coming in.

Roadrunner 17:39, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So what is the Flubberizoch effect? you still have not answered and I still cant find it documented anywhere. -Ionized 18:51, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)
RR, I disagree with your #2: "2) The statement that recent developments have shaken belief in standard cosmology needs to be attributed. Most astrophysicists simply do not believe that recent observations have brought the big bang into question. (If you want to challenge that statement, we can do a survey of papers in ApJ or preprints in arxiv.org.) - Roadrunner 16:56, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)"
So are you saying that the foundations of the big bang are not at all in question?
Not by most of the papers that are currently being written in ApJ.
and then you also state in the article that the big bangers KNOW about the problems and objections?
Yes. And the consensus among astrophysicists in 2004, is that all of the problems and objections can be handled without questioning the foundations of the big bang. Now this doesn't mean that the consensus is correct. The consensus has been wrong before. In 1960, most geologists thought the plate tectonics was a nutty idea.
you contradict yourself and expect ME to prove it! it isnt going to work that way. If the big bang was not in question, recently or not, would this article exist?
Of course. There should be encyclopedia articles on all sorts of theories. However, an article on non-standard cosmologies needs to simply include the fact that most astronomers don't take them seriously as of 2004 and the reasons why they don't take them seriously. The scientific community has been known to be *wrong*, and it wouldn't surprise me very much if a decade from now everyone is laughing at themselves at how the data was misinterpreted for a non-existent big bang.
The statement does NOT need to be attributed. Besides, if you want attribution, look at what someone added under the "objections to the big bang" section. You can go ahead and search ApX all you want. Im busy. And statements such as (schematically) "this is a minority view, the majority believe in the standard big bang" should not be inserted. it is already stressed SEVERAL times in the article that Big BAngers such as yourself think that us non-standards are wrong. you dont see me going into the big bang article and adding discalimers, do you?
Maybe you should if you think the disclaimers are appropriate. For example, it would be useful if you go through the evidence for the big bang and list alternate interpretations of the evidence.

no, cause i respect that space. On a different note, I do agree that each different cosmology needs its space in this article. And lets not forget, the only reason Arp made it to this article already is cause YOU moved him here from the plasma page! With time this page will continue to improve. I agree more needs to be said about as many non-standard cosmologies as we can do. In the mean time, im removing the section titled Alfven Universe cause this is all covered in the plasma cosmology page.

The trouble is that there are a lot of different and conflicting plasma cosmologies of which the Alfven universe is only one. Historically and philosophically, the Alfven universe is extremely important because it represents a very interesting and signficant approach to the problem, and so it should get a lot of space. -RR
no doubt, which is only why i removed the heading which contained an empty body. the alfven model can come back in once it is summarized nicely, instead of left blank. and roadrunner, i see you are back at interrupting other's posts to get the upper hand, rather than obtaining paragraph dialog..-Ionized 20:51, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)


Yes this page is still a mess, but we can work to clean it continuously. -Ionized 20:36, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I like what you did with the pre-amble, concerning the multiplicities of cosmologies. I changed some wording (mostly for grammatical reason and clarity.) I removed another small and obvious disclaimer, that non-standard cosmologists are a tiny part of the community. That much is obvious. I hope we can agree now on the paragraph. -Ionized 20:55, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Please don't make it up

Flubberizoch effect? Is that some sort of joke? If you can't provide papers or evidence, don't just make it up. In other news, while trawling around on arxiv, there are some interesting papers by Martin Lopez-Corredoira from Brazil. A particularly interesting one questioning the redshift expansion is arXiv 0310214. I've toyed with Tired light, but someone beat me to it a month earlier with Tired light effect. - Jon 05:17, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Will whoever it is who is editing this page please get yourself a log in so we can discuss the article, instead of this endless to-ing and fro-ing. I'm quite prepared to discuss things, but not if you insist on hiding behind an IP address. I already stated at the beginning of the article that a local redshift mechanism is not clearly understood. - Jon 01:16, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Someone removed the mentioning of Redshift periodicity in the article. It will soon be re-inserted. Must I remind you of something I posted many months ago above on this very page? it reads:

"Just a note on the quantized redshift comment about Arp being the only one - It was Geoffrey Burbidge who first noticed the ::periodicity of z=1.95, and throughout the years a small group of others also analyzed copious amounts data coming up with a list of ::prefered z values. As discussed in "Quasars, Redshifts, and Controversies" the group is: Burbidge and Burbidge (1967), Karlsson ::(1971,73,77), Barnothy and Barnothy (1976), Depaquit, Pecker, Vigier (1984). The list is as follows:
0.30, 0.60, 0.96, 1.41, 1.96. It was identified by Arp that there are other periodicity groupings as well, and that certain
groups of quasars exhibit certain ranges of periodicity... "

Since this was NEVER disproved, when I have time I will translate the above information into suitable form for insertion into article. Unless someone else wants to do it first... -Ionized 14:26, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

Quantization of redshifts was roundly disproved by an agreed upon test advocated by Burbidge and leaders of the 2dF survey. Burbidge made a prediction that quasars in the survey would show quantization. 2dF showed that they did not. This is basically the death-knell for quantization of redshifts. -user unknown

well that is ok, and this means that we can include both the first proposed quantization AND its refutation in the article. Can you please point me to the papers in which the proposal is discussed? rather, you could begin to add this yourself. Basically quantization of redshift is going back into the article, and so we could also add the 2df suirvey results after the initial discoveries are explained.-Ionized 14:26, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
Also there have been several major galaxy surveys since 2dF. None of them show any sign of quasar clustering around galaxies or any sort of quantization. The other point is that you need to identify which Burbidge. There are two major astronomers named Burbidge, one who is a strong advocate of non-standard cosmology (the quasi steady state model) and one who isn't. The two of them happen to be married to each other.

Roadrunner 19:13, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hi there, I have reworked most of the edits and put back your changes (sorry about the edit clash, I wasn't immediately sure what to do as I am still new to Wikipedia). I have stated quite clearly where theory is lacking, it does not need to be reinforced with large hammers! :-) Ionized, I'm going abroad for a week, so I'll leave it for you in case we end up stepping on each other's toes again.

Also, this talk page has exceeded 32K, what does that mean and what shall we do about it? Happy hacking - Jon 02:55, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

the exceeding 32k thing just means we need to break up our page into more sections, which we have been doing. this way if people with ancient comps cant edit the entire page, they can at least edit individual sections. so it is not a problem. you dont step on my toes at all, your edits have greatly clarified many issues which needed to be done. I agree that greatly reinforcing the infantile and under-developed nature of our theories should not be done. It is most obvious by now that this is NON standard, so I remove as many disclaimers as i can, all of which have been inserted by BB proponents. Its amazing how the BB props wear their thick BB glasses when looking at the non standard models. If only we could get them to look at it while their thick vision altering lenses are removed...
You aren't aware of the results of one of the major galaxy redshift surveys and then you go around and argue that proponents of the big bang are acting out of ideological blindness? The major thrust of observation cosmology in the last ten years has been doing statistical work on the CBR and galaxy redshift surveys.
(all from within the standard paradigm, as if it will point to anything but the big bang-Ionized 20:44, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC))
You can get big bang models to fit those statistics (you have to do some fudging but you can get it to fit). I'm not aware of any plasma cosmology model that even starts to come close. QSSM is taken a bit more seriously because they are aware of the data and are trying to get QSSM to fit.
My gut feeling is that if you try to calculate a power spectrum from a plasma cosmology, you will get a power law dependence on scale, which is what you get whenever you look at the power spectrums of things that we know have to do with plasma. It's hard for me to see how a plasma process can get the spectrum you see in galaxy surveys or more to the point the CBR. If you can point me to a preprint where someone has even tried, I'd be appreciative.
Please go ahead and give it a try!-Ionized 20:51, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
Jon, could you please research the redshift periodicity so that we can add this back into the article? i simply dont have time. good place to start are the papers by Burbidge etc listed above. ohhh, and you should check out the "Center for Magnetic Self-Organization in Plasmas", a new NSF and DOE funded multi-disciplinary center which was founded in 2003. Im soon applying for grad work there, as it is one of the few places where active plasma astrophysics research is happening.
You have to distinguish between plasma astrophysics and plasma cosmology. There are lots of places where plasma astrophysics is going on, and its hard in fact to find a non-cosmological process in astrophysics in which plasma isn't involved.
Roadrunner 19:29, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
-Ionized 16:41, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Did anyone actually READ Lerner's 1990 ApJ article? If they had, they would have known about local vs intervening magnetic field interactions, and not vandalised the article. This is a NON STANDARD cosmology page, therefore there will be gaps in the proposed theories. We have stated this at the top of the article. Please discuss things first before anonymously wading in and cocking up the article. I'm more than happy to say that X dne Y, but we want to compose the text so that it is easy to follow, not read like a drunken slanging match in a university clubroom. Cheers, Jon 15:19, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Removed this

However, this point is highly subjective, as any physics may be considered either exotic or not, dependent on that persons view. Another point worth mentioning is that no human model of the universe can truly be complete and in final form, when communicated.

Maybe this needs to be clarified but the term exotic physics means things that we haven't observed directly in the laboratory. Also, I don't see the second sentence as being relevant or even true.

Roadrunner 19:40, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Changed the wording of the objections to the standard model. The previous wording seemed to imply that the issues raised by the open letter were under dispute when they aren't.

Roadrunner 13:10, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Dark matter

Also the discussion of dark matter needs to be revised. The situation is as follows. Big bang cosmologies require huge amounts of dark matter to work. This issue is completely independent of galaxy rotation curves. The fact that there seems to be a requirement for dark matter that is completely independent of the big bang is one of the reasons why most astronomers think that the BB is on the right track.

Please explain why and how dark matter is independent of Big Bang models, as I find that difficult to believe. - Jon 14:53, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The observations of of galactic rotational curves/velocity dispersions are only one way to get at the mass of systems. One can and does also use gravitational lensing and X=Ray temperature measurements of clusters to obtain masses. Then all you need to do is apply the normal mass-to-light ratio to see if the measurements agree. They don't. Every measurement we have of mass that is independent of the mass-to-light emission ratios that we get from normal matter shows that there is about 90% more matter in the universe than stuff that interacts with light (atomic and plasma matter). That's completely independent of the Big Bang model which predicts, from the positions and strengths of acoustic peaks in the CMB, a similar abundance of dark matter. Not to mention that the hierarchical model of structure formation also relies on dark matter to work. So there are a number of ways that the Big Bang predicts dark matter and there are a number of independent measurements of dark matter that are in concordance with the predictions.

The other fact is that the amount of dark matter than BB cosmologies require is much larger than the amount of "missing matter" is need to resolve the galaxy rotation curves.

Roadrunner 13:13, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

POV warning

Can somebody clarify to which point "The neutrality of this article is disputed" applies? It seems to me, the POV warning realtes to a much older version of the article and should be removed. --Pjacobi 12:29, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)

Edits by anon user

I cannot for the life of me figure out why the edits that were made by the last annonymous user are considered better. A wholesale revert has been done, if there are any objections, please talk about them here. Joshuaschroeder 29 June 2005 14:56 (UTC)

Please, I implore the anonymous user to write their objections here. Joshuaschroeder 4 July 2005 21:45 (UTC)

For interested parties, there is a decent article in the 2 July 2005 New Scientist on page 30 covering non-standard cosmology. Jon 05:06, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Would it be possible to reference some other publication other than that bullyrag? Joshuaschroeder 05:21, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
It's a reasonably fair report on the June 2005 Crisis in Cosmology conference in Portugal. The URL for the conference is http://www.cosmology.info/2005conference/ For instance, it refers to a recent relativistic MOND solution (see arXiv article), some criticism of BB from Scarpa (globular cluster star motions) and Lerner (plasma cosmology), WMAP anomalies reported by Magueeijo et al., High redshift galaxies with dusty lanes, etc. The original NewScientist article is subscription only. Jon 09:38, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the direct link. Joshuaschroeder 13:05, 11 July 2005 (U


Wow reading this a year after last coming here is kind of a trip... I still laugh at the "the survey shows it supports big bang" type stuff,,, no kidding huh? of course it supports BB it was designed through the eyes of BB!!

Wholesale deletions

Whole sections of this article have been deleted - which just proves the point I was making about the "orthodoxy" of the Big Bang theory. This is the non-standard cosmology page for goodness sake! One section deleted for being "undocumented and frivolous" was my assertion that "a healthy skepticism and an ongoing and wide-ranging debate about alternatives is felt by some to be better". I would have thought this was the whole basis of science! Science progresses by a coolly skeptical approach and a weighing up of all alternatives, not by sticking rigidly to one theory. In cosmology, one of the deepest and most mysterious of subjects, there should be 5 or 10 theories constantly compared and contrasted. Some parts of some theories may seem implausible, but the relative implausibilities have to be weighed up.

In the Big Bang theory, for example, one has to explain (a) the initial Big Bang, (b) inflation, (c) dark matter, (d) dark energy. In the Quasi-Steady State theory, one has to explain (a) matter creation, (b) the CMB. In some forms of static Universe theory, one has to explain (a) "tired light" redshift, (b) "tired gravity", (c) the abundance of light elements.

The Big Bang theory is having problems. This needs to be faced up to. Dark matter, dark energy and inflation are all totally unproved and speculative. I particularly like the part of the Big Bang article about dark matter particles, which states that "several projects to detect them are underway". In other words, "we have no evidence whatsoever for them".

I made the point about the (relatively) very close Andromeda Galaxy having its estimated distance drastically increased - to illustrate how a relatively approximate science cosmology still is.

On the Cosmological Principle, this has been used completely erroneously in the past, when successively the Earth, the Solar System and the Milky Way Galaxy were thought to be the entire Universe. There is no reason why the largest structures we currently know should necessarily be the largest structures in existence, and this needs to be borne in mind.

Let's keep debating. In a skeptical scientific way, of course!

Chris

81.136.6.24 18:31, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Whether the Big Bang theory is having problems or not is not the issue. Your inclusions were personal research and not documented, as is most of what you are writing here. Moreover, your insistence about the largest structures we currently know should be necessarily the largest structures in existence has no relevence to the article. Nobody is saying that there aren't larger structures out there due to the Cosmological Principle -- in fact it's the observation that there is statisically no formations larger than superclusters which are said to be the first vindications of isotropy in the universe. Not to say that this won't be found to be incorrect in the future, but your attempt to address this in the article was entirely spurious. Joshuaschroeder 23:13, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Non-standard versus standard

Regarding this paragraph...

Pseudoscience, fringe science, bad science, and junk science are all terms used to describe ideas that are proposed that are considered by the scientific community to either lack explanatory power or are incomplete compared to the accepted scientific theories. All the ideas discussed in this article have been described as these things at various times. Some of the ideas were at one time considered possible explanations but have since been dismissed in favor of the Big Bang. Other ideas have never had wide acceptance. All nonstandard cosmologies rely on a rejection of the major features of the Big Bang which are considered problematic by the proponents of the ideas for a number of reasons ranging from religion to claimed skepticism. Proponents of these ideas often invoke past scientific revolutions where the dominant scientific paradigm was rejected in favor of a new idea to lend credibility to their beliefs. As Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", and making a claim that any one proponent is akin to Newton or Einstein tends to be met with incredulity by scientists.

... Doesn't this somewhat imply that all non-standard theories are Pseudoscience, fringe science, bad science, and junk science, as considered by the whole scientific community, for reasons from religion to skepticism?

That would seem to imply that (a) genuine scientists can't do genuine scientific work, that happens to turn out incorrect, and (b) only standard cosmology is true science (c) Only accepted knowledge is scientific.

Is this a neutral point of view? --Iantresman 16:59, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

No ... it isn't, but the BB-POV is not NPOV. JDR 14:39, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
It is true that all of these ideas are one of those things. That is basic NPOV. The least "offensive" to the sensibilities of the proponents is probably the term fringe science which makes no value judgements with regards to whether the idea is really scientific or not, but simply points out its minority status. Your statement that this statement implies something other than it says doesn't seem to be backed up by the actual text. Joshuaschroeder 14:26, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
The implication is that the genuine scientific study of any non-standard cosmology is either pseudoscience, fringe science, bad science, and junk science. If we take plasma cosmology, which is investigated by professional scientists in a sceintific manner... what makes any part of plasma cosmology either pseudoscience, fringe science, bad science, or junk science? --Iantresman 18:50, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
That's not an implication, it's directly said. Any study, be it scientific or otherwise, is in the context of the ideas being one of those things. Plasma cosmology is fringe science at best. Joshuaschroeder 02:09, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

The fact that the near-consensus of physicists is that the big bang view is the best available cosmological model, and the basic features of the model have been sufficiently confirmed that there is little likelihood of any change in the central features of the model. That alone makes those investigating alternatives to the big bang fringe science. It is just the same as biologists investigating alternatives to natural selection, geologists investigating alternatives to plate tectonics, etc... There is a broad scientific consensus. Regardless of what you, personally, think about the big bang, or the motives of those scientists, the existence of the consensus is indisputable. This is acknowledged clearly in the cosmologystatement.org website (that someone will invariably try to direct me to as evidence of widespread dissent): "Today, virtually all financial and experimental resources in cosmology are devoted to big bang studies. " –Joke137 20:55, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

In the same way that Big Bang cosmology was fringe science when it was first proposed? And presumably every new theory is fringe science since there is no consensus, and the field of study is very small? --Iantresman 22:31, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Yes, precisely. The Big Bang, when Lemaitre proposed it, was definitely fringe science. Every new theory that is made in response to a majority theory of the scientific community is necessarily fringe science. Joshuaschroeder 02:07, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
That's fine then, though depsite my own objections for the Big Bang theory, I wouldn't lump it with pseudoscience, fringe science, bad science, or junk science. --Iantresman 09:19, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
But you miss that the Big Bang theory was as wrong with the CMRB as the other theories ... when it was first detected. Then, the big bang theorists changed fundemental values in the theory and "declared" victory. The BB is a "scientific mythology" as much as genesis is a "religious mythology". (Ponders Alfven ...) Sincerely, JDR
I wouldn't either, seeing as how it is not the time of Lemaitre and Einstein, but it is 2005. Joshuaschroeder 12:12, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

The paragraph serves no purpose other than to taint nonstandard cosmology. While it is ostensibly written using the trappings of the neutral point of view, it comes across as far from neutral. It's a thinly veiled tarring and feathering of nonstandard ideas. That's why I removed much of it. Furthermore, it's vague "all of the ideas ... have been described as these things at various times". Oh really? This kind of sloppy broad brush smear is not the NPOV. Also, the use of the passive voice "have been dismissed" ... by whom? --here the paragraph hides behind a semblance of objectivity. Also, why is "claimed" scientific skepticism... it isn't the NPOV to add "claimed" just to cast doubt on the sincerity or competency of the claimants. See the Wikipedia guidelines on NPOV for this. I intend to delete this section again rather than edit it to neutrality, since it's very presence is a deviation from neutrality. --GordonHogenson 02:59, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. But Big Bang cosmology is more than just a "standard cosmology" and "theory"... it is a dogma, and all other lines of enquiring are subjected to ridicule. I've had the same problem with the entry on Redshift where only cosmological redshifts are allowed to be detailed. I feel sorry for all the scientists who investigate new avenues of thought, but who are automatically tarred a fringe scientist. Science historians will get to look back at these times and not be in the least bit surprised --Iantresman 07:57, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
While each of you are entitled to your opinions, your opinions are not NPOV. All of the ideas discussed on the page have been described as one of those topics. That is the truth. There are references at the bottom to prove it. It needs to be made very clear to readers that non-standard cosmologies are nonstandard for reasons. Joshuaschroeder 12:59, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Joshuaschroeder, strong opinions usually are not NPOV. And the BB opinion, gaurded as they are, is definitely not NPOV. The paragraph is a "tarring and feathering" of nonstandard ideas. JDR 14:59, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Joshua, your opinions are not NPOV either. Your perspective is from mainstream science, and I respect that, but you are allowing your perspective to color your judgment. Please help me find the reference that says that Arp's views are psuedoscience.

read the papers on redshifts and quasars. Arp's ideas represent not even 0.01% of the published works on the subject according to my look on adsabs. Joshuaschroeder 14:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Then let me know where QSSC is referred to as "bad science", and where it is referred to as "fringe science".

Again, look on the adsabs search. It is clear. Joshuaschroeder 14:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia should make a clear distinction between ideas that are really thought of as psuedoscience and ideas that are considered alternative theories that are out of the mainstream.

Is this a policy you made up? Do you have a way of determining this? Joshuaschroeder 14:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I have no problem calling Creation science pseudoscience, but it's misapplied to non-standard cosmological views such as those of Arp and the late Fred Hoyle.

You may not have a problem describing CS as pseudoscience, but others do. Why do you get to decide what is and isn't pseudoscience? Joshuaschroeder 14:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

The same applies to "bad science", "fringe science", "pathological science", etc. Perhaps we could agree that the ideas of Arp and Hoyle are considered "non-mainstream" science, or "non-standard" but I think we should steer clear of pejorative terms unless you can really prove that large numbers of scientists actually would lump Arp and Hoyle in with astrology.

Nobody claimed they would lump them with astrology as astrology isn't even considered to be pseudoscientific by astronomers I know. Joshuaschroeder 14:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

For example, take the reference to Ned Wright's page. I see there scientific arguments refuting a version of tired light, QSSC, and so on. But I don't see a labeling of these alternatives as pseudoscience, fringe science, or bad science. If Ned Wright can be more or less fair and reasonable in his critique of ideas he thinks are wrong, we can equally fair and equitable here.

Wright doesn't use the terms as they are defined here on Wikipedia. That's totally within his right, but to claim that the terms aren't applicable is incorrect. Joshuaschroeder 14:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Also, even if you find one or two references that refer to these views as pseudoscience, you also have to consider neutrality in presentation. If only a small minority of people are labeling these ideas as pseudoscience, but the majority of critics simply consider the ideas as scientific ideas they happen to disagree with, then it's wrong to put the emphasis in the article on the very small minority who consider the ideas psuedoscience. --GordonHogenson 13:54, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Do not conflate pseudoscience with fringe science and bad science. We don't do that on this page and we do provide links and describe the ideas in detail for those to consider. A disclaimer is important because these ideas are correctly described as those. You would have more legitimacy if you could find someone who disagreed with non-standard cosmologies but agreed that they weren't bad science, fringe science, or pseudoscience. The onus is on you. Joshuaschroeder 14:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
The majority of m

Here's where we disagree:

  • The paragraph says "All the ideas discussed in this article have been described as these things at various times." Since "these things" is "psuedoscience", "fringe science", "bad science" and "junk science" this article implies that everything in the article is considered all of the above. I disagree that that is the case. Some may argue the points, but fundamentally there are scientific questions and they are being worked out within science. The number of articles "in favor" of some non-standard cosmologies is less, so yes I can agree that we're discussing "non-standard". However the articles indexed in the database you mentioned don't refer to Arp and Hoyle as "psuedoscience", "bad science," "junk science" or "fringe science". These ideas may be considered so by Joshua, but you have not proven (as you claimed) that they are considered so broadly.

GordonHogenson 15:06, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

The articles referenced have criticized methodology in the sense that they criticize "bad science". I have tried to accomodate the view that maybe not all of the terms are applied to all nonstandard cosmologies. A point well taken. Joshuaschroeder 15:33, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, thanks, this is a slight improvement, and it's nice to see that we can agree on something. I still think there's bias, as not all of the concerns I raised above were addressed, but I'll leave it for another day.GordonHogenson 00:13, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Let me say from the start, that I do not believe in Creation Science; I am an atheist. However, that does not mean that Creation Science can not be investigated scientifically. The implication from this article is that the mere investigation of Creation Science is "psuedoscience", "fringe science", "bad science" or "junk science"; Every single terms is biased negatively. --Iantresman 16:11, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I notice that a press release from 27th Sept "Distant Galaxy is Too Massive For Current Theories" suggests that "This galaxy contains 8 times the mass of stars as the Milky Way, and really shouldn't exist according to current astronomical theories". By definition, the current astonomical theory is bad science, which in turns makes it at least psuedoscience or junk science? --Iantresman 16:11, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

The paragraph lacks precision as it stands. It leaves the reader guessing... which of these ideas are considered psuedoscience, bad science, fringe science, and junk science, and which are not? And who is doing the considering here? I think the author of this biased section intends the reader to have these doubts so as to increase the question in reader's minds about these theories, out of bias of his own. I doubt that references could be found that can prove that these terms are used to describe Arp's and Hoyle's ideas. If references can be found that use these specific terms, then they should either be added to the article with footnotes, or at least posted in the discussion so that we can agree that these terms are indeed used. I personally have not heard that Arp's and Hoyle's ideas are considered pseudoscience, bad science, fringe science, or junk science. Out of the mainstream, yes. So, while I appreciate the minor concession yesterday to at least leave the reader guessing, the bias will only be removed if the terms are applied and justified individually on each alternative cosmology, rather than appearing in the paragraph at the top as it is now.GordonHogenson 11:52, 30 September 2005 (UTC) Made the edits. Don't add back the controversial phrase, Joshua, at this point you are the only defender of that paragraph in its biased form. If you can justify the application of those actual terms to one or more of the ideas in the article, then add the disclaimers to those specific ideas so the reader is not left guessing.GordonHogenson 12:16, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the comment about Carl Sagan in the disputed paragraph. Sagan is quoted as if his opinion is truth. This is rather like an article with "As Jesus said, ...". We have to remove that.GordonHogenson 12:26, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

The paragraph is designed to suggests that any non-standard cosmology is psuedoscience, bad science, fringe science, or junk science. I think that perfectly illustrates the dogmatism of the standard cosmology. --Iantresman 14:06, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
There may be a better way to capture the dogmatism of the standard cosmology, perhaps by having a section which handles how alternative cosmology is viewed, with specifics on what groups hold which viewpoints. The paragraph as quoted at the top of this section is very non-specific and leaves a lot to the imagination; as such it's not fit for an encyclopedia.GordonHogenson 17:14, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

If someone can justify the application of those terms, by pointing to multiple references that demonstrate that these terms are in fact used regarding each of the theories individually, then we can have this in the main intro. Otherwise the terms should be added to each individual paragraph. Please, no more senseless reverts without justifying this. By the way, a search for "intrinsic redshift" and "fringe science" returns only one hit--this page. There is similar lack of usage of these terms for the other alternative theories within science. Only for creationism did I find hits which actually refer to that cosmology as pseudoscience.GordonHogenson 16:23, 30 September 2005 (UTC)


Intrinsic redshifts are not fringe science. Check out there coverage on crank.net, for example. You shouldn't use only the internet as your research. It is a poor tactic. Joshuaschroeder 19:36, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I do have other resources at my disposal. You are welcome to use any reference to support the claim that any of the non-standard cosmologies are seriously and widely considered pseudoscience. So far you haven't done so. I did look at crank.net. Of course, the POV represented there isn't mainstream science, it's the POV of skeptical organizations.GordonHogenson 20:14, 30 September 2005 (UTC)


When it comes to obscurity, you need to refer to groups that moniter it. The scientific community depends on skeptical organizations to do that work.
In my work as an astronomer I get reams of letters describing crackpot idea after crackpot idea. I don't have time to respond to each and every one of them. There are only a few people that spend time dealing with such issues. Phil Plait is one of them, Ned Wright is another, but theirs is a hobby -- not a full time endeavor.
The fact is that most people in astronomy or cosmology who have heard about these ideas dismiss them out-of-hand. The few that do criticize them do so rather handily -- often without looking back even though the Against the Mainstreamers continue to retort and comeback with crazier and more shrill ideas. Even the plasma cosmology proponents get in on the act -- Eric Lerner has literally shouted down people at conferences. Scientists have better things to publish than criticism of Halton Arp's work.
So that's where we stand -- the references are by ommission and by way of obscure attacks in the literature. We report all crackpot ideas in Wikipedia, but fairness dictates that we call them what they are.
Joshuaschroeder 20:23, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Your lock of neutrality is evident. The term "crackpot" is pejorative. The intrinsic redshift ideas are discussed as a legitimate viewpoint in scientific papers. For example see Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 359 (2005) 1193), online as astro-ph/0506115 referenced by another participant--the article sensibly proposes an observational test program to investigate in a neutral manner the properties of certain quasars in order to evaluate the validity of the Arp claims. In this paper, we see that the view is fairly presented as a minority viewpoint, but one does not see pejorative characterizations. Even in Plait and Wright's analysis, I don't see that these ideas are considered outside science or not using the valid scientific procedures. It seems that the QSSC and intrinsic redshift folks are absolutely using the methods of science, and in no way are considered pseudoscience.
Harping on a term you don't like is hardly indicative of a neutral point of view on your part. Looking at the page on pseudoscience may shed some light on the subject. Joshuaschroeder 21:29, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Just because your colleagues "dismiss" an idea does not make it pseudoscience--pseudoscience is illegitimate science, not just science that is dismissed by a majority of the community. Those within the scientific community need to be particularly careful when getting into POV issues since it's such a common mistake to conflate the scientific worldview with the NPOV.
I am not the one here who needs a lecture about NPOV. You have made your biases known pretty well and petty squabblings such as this do little to further the editorial process. If you are curious about NPOV in this article, start an RfC. Joshuaschroeder 21:29, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
We both have our views and illustrating these on the talk page is not a bad thing. Putting them into the article, which you have done, and I have not, is another matter. I have simply removed your biased views. GordonHogenson 00:01, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
Skeptical organizations cannot be taken to represent the scientific community, although it is true that some within the scientific community are also in the skeptical community. If Lerner shouted down opponents I would guess he was outnumbered and was not given a chance to have his say.GordonHogenson 21:00, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Apologetics aside, you have your explanation. That you don't accept it is not surprising to me. I have seen proponents like you come and go looking at this particular article.
If I might present an alternative: can you find a citation that contradicts any of the facts presented in this article? Joshuaschroeder 21:29, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Arp section

Modified the Arp section to account for him being an observational astronomer with observations that he says refute the expansion interpretation and the Big Bang. The old version implied he was a theoretician with an alternative cosmology. He invites theoreticians to work out a new model, but he himself only dips his feet into alternative ideas.GordonHogenson 17:27, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Problem is, Arp talks like he is a theoretician in his popular books on the subject, for example. He is an observationalist, but Arp is covered well on his own page. Modify there, not here. Joshuaschroeder 19:35, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
In his book "Seeing Red" Arp ventures a bit into what an alternative cosmology is like but clearly invites theoreticians to take up the mantle.GordonHogenson 20:39, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
So the criticism is warranted since Arp puts on pretences. Nevertheless, I don't think your edits are so terrible. Joshuaschroeder 20:54, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Then why revert it?GordonHogenson 21:31, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
It's still there, isn't it? Joshuaschroeder 21:34, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
It is now, after you restored it. Thanks. GordonHogenson 00:05, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Regarding:

The biggest problem with Arp's analysis is that today there are tens of thousands of quasars with known redshifts discovered by various sky surveys. The vast majority of these quasars are not correlated in any way with nearby AGN. Indeed, with improved observing techniques, a number of host galaxies have been observed around quasars which indicates that those quasars at least really are at cosmological distances and are not the kind of objects Arp proposes. Arp's analysis, according to most scientists, suffers from being based on small number statistics and hunting for peculiar coincidences and odd associations. In a vast universe such as our own, peculiarities and oddities are bound to appear if one looks in enough places. Unbiased samples of sources, taken from numerous galaxy surveys of the sky show none of the proposed 'irregularities' nor any statistically significant correlations exist.

Can references be provided for this paragraph? The previous paragraph includes good refs, this one should, too. Also, we need to present this as from a POV, not as an absolute.GordonHogenson 17:27, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

E. Zackrisson, On quasar host galaxies as tests of non-cosmological redshifts (Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 359 (2005) 1193), online as astro-ph/0506115 explicitely explores the issue of Arp's Quasars and mentions in passing
  • that the vast majority of scientists in the field disagrees with Arp's reasoning
  • that with increasing observational power, more and more host galaxies are identified and there is no statistical significant gap which would hint for the existence of quasars without host galaxy
  • that general arguments (summed energy output observed as background) imply that only a small subpopulation of all quasars can be of the Arp type
Zackrickson then comes than to the core of his issue: Current observational data cannot falsify Arp type quasars as a small subpopulation, but a fitted observational program would be able to do so.
Piotr Popowski and Wolfgang Weinzierl, A Test for the Origin of Quasar Redshifts, (Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 348 (2004) 235), online as astro-ph/0309511 discuss a test based on proper motion to eventually decide the issue.
These proposed tests, and the papers of Bell himself, are pretty much all, still considering local Quasars. The vast majority of current papers don't see the need to discuss this theory anymore but concentrate on the increrasing knowledge about hos galaxies.
Pjacobi 18:33, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Continued unexplained deletion

on NPOV grounds

I understand the consternation of nonstandard proponents with the disclaimer statement, but the statement is NPOV. It is true that there are untested, unverified, and problematic statements made in each of the cosmologies. Even the one that is closest to the mainstream, plasma cosmology, is considered unsupportable and generally "fringe science" by people who keep up in science. The rest are considered bad to junk to pseudoscience -- in the same boat as many other harebrained and crackpot ideas that have been promoted from time to time. We have to be honest about this, these are all considered this way by the scientific community and by the skeptical community and readers need to be made aware of this. It isn't simply a case of these ideas being "incomplete" -- all of them have tremendous flaws. I am trying to augment and nuance the statements as much as possible, but the proponents who have swooped in as of late need to realize that they are being described fairly in this article. Joshuaschroeder 20:10, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm as much an advocate of NPOV as you claim to be. However, I see that your contributions often equate the view of the mainstream with the neutral point of view. Consider the phrase "each one has major flaws that have caused them to be considered outside the scientific mainstream". The use of words like "flaws" or "problems" needs to be qualified since there is debate about them. They are argued to be flaws, so the wording needs reflect the argument, not the fact.

Argued? Excuse me, they are well spelled out on this page. How can this be an argument if it's simply true that they don't provide explanations? There is a difference between an argument and a fact, and this, dear sir, is a fact. Joshuaschroeder 20:51, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
My point was that whether it's a "flaw" or "problem" is a matter of opinion, not fact. There are many unresolved and unexplained aspects of science. A more neutral term would be "open issues," perhaps. GordonHogenson 21:54, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
If that's truly "neutral" it comes at the expense of fact. We write neutrally, but we shouldn't accomodate true problems which is exactly what are being described here for the reader. It would be dishonest to describe these as "open issues" when the only people who consider them as such are the proponents of the ideas. Joshuaschroeder 22:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
With appropriate wording we can be neutral without expensing facts, I certainly hope. For example, one might simply say which groups consider the issues open, but that the large majority of astronomers and physicists consider the issues decided. GordonHogenson 00:09, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
The only "groups" that consider them open are the advocates of nonstandard cosmologies. That's very clear from the article. Joshuaschroeder 13:53, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Additionally the NPOV is not just limited to stating facts. See the NPOV disputes page, especially the section on "How can one disagree about NPOV".GordonHogenson 20:37, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

  • The article can simply be biased, expressing viewpoints as facts (see Wikipedia:POV)
For example the use of "flaws" and "problems"
See above. There are flaws and problems shown to exist in this very article. Joshuaschroeder 20:51, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Flaws and problems according to one point of view, not in an absolute sense. GordonHogenson 21:54, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
If it is your contention that flaws and problems are not determined in the scientific sense then we can clarify this on the page. They are problems and flaws with respect to science, not with respect to God. However, that's really beside the point as the article sets itself up in contrast to science. Joshuaschroeder 22:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
But it's being read by everybody, not just scientists, so the facts should be stated with respect to humanity as a whole. That's the whole point of NPOV. I wouldn't necessarily bring God into the picture, as that's bound to confuse the issue even further. :) GordonHogenson 00:12, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm using God as a device above. The point is that the facts are stated with respect to science by the proponents of nonstandard cosmologies themselves. They make the distinction and are proud of it, generally. Joshuaschroeder 13:53, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
  • While each fact mentioned in the article might be presented fairly, the very selection (and omission) of facts can make an article biased.
The emphasis on the terms pseudoscience, bad science, fringe science, and junk science (as if one of these wasn't enough), especially at the start of the section, is a biased selection and presentation of facts, as if the opinions of critics carried more weight than the ideas themselves.
The nonstandard nature of these ideas is what establishes them as those ideas. That's why they all land on the same page in the first place. Maybe we shouldn't have a nonstandard page at all. Maybe we should AfD this thing and just have every idea stand on its own. That would be one solution to this. Joshuaschroeder 20:51, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
You're equating non-standard with "pseudoscience", "bad science", "fringe science" and "junk science". The scientific community considers these ideas non-standard, the others are not. GordonHogenson 21:54, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Non-standard does fall into one of those categories. That's why we describe it as such. Joshuaschroeder 22:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Some viewpoints, although not presented as facts, can be given undue attention and space compared to others (see Wikipedia:Balance).
Viewpoints of a few (if they even exist) who use pejorative terms such as pseudoscience, bad science and junk science to describe QSSC and/or intrinsic redshift, are given weight when they represent few if any adherents.
It isn't surprising that adherents to QSSC/intrinsic redshifts don't use pejorative terms in describing their beliefs. I fail to understand what this implies. Joshuaschroeder 20:51, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm referring to the few debunkers who, you seem to say but can't identify and reference, use the pejorative terms. The views of these debunkers are so few in number that their view doesn't warrant inclusion. The scientific majority considers the ideas incorrect, but not pseudoscience, fringe science, bad science, or junk science. GordonHogenson 21:54, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
We've referenced them above for you, and their views are succinctly summarized in the articles describing the terms you think are pejorative. When an idea is considered incorrect but remains advocated by people, it is necessarily described as one of those topics. If you think otherwise, give a counterexample. Joshuaschroeder 22:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
  • The text and manner of writing can insinuate that one viewpoint is more correct than another.
The presence of the disclaimer and the lack of specificity of the pejorative terms invites the reader to apply them more broadly than justified by evidence, thus insinuates that the mainstream view is more correct.
The mainstream view isn't "more correct", but it is much better documented and has fewer flaws. Science, as a self-corrective institution, works in this way. The appeal can be made that science isn't "more correct" but that things that aren't considered good approximations to reality are not studied in science. Joshuaschroeder 20:51, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
The point still stands--the article (and your comments) lead one to accept the mainstream view. That's not NPOV. GordonHogenson 21:54, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. We are describing things in an NPOV fashion here. Those who dislike the scientific community (a lot of them oppose the Big Bang) will find the descriptions of their ideas heartening as they dislike the scientific community. Those who find them to be a worthwhile authority will take the grain of salt and move on. Joshuaschroeder 22:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
  • The subject or title of the article can imply a particular point of view.
No objection here.
  • A type of analysis of facts that can lead to the article suggesting a particular point of view's accuracy over other equally valid analytic perspectives.
Rampant throughout the article.
An interesting opinion, but one not borne out by facts listed in the article. Joshuaschroeder 20:51, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I'll get into this later. For now I want to keep the focus on the most offensive part. GordonHogenson 21:54, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
  • The author's own viewpoint is mentioned or obvious.
There is a veil of objectivity, but the viewpoint is absolutely clear that the author believes these ideas to be outside the realm of science and doesn't want readers to consider them seriously.
Which author are you refering to? There have been many authors of this article. I have contributed quite a bit, but so have others. Joshuaschroeder 20:51, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I use the term "author" in the sense used by the NPOV article--meaning the conflation of all authors into one hypothetical entity. The point still stands. GordonHogenson 21:54, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Since many of the authors have believed many different things, I think your point is in serious jeopardy. Joshuaschroeder 22:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Alternate viewpoints are compared in persuasive terms.
The article makes an argument. It brings up the nonstandard cosmologies and then tears them down.
I didn't invent the article. Perhaps the article shouldn't exist. I may support an AfD if that's what you think is appropriate. I don't think this is the best article on Wikipedia and I think you may bring up good points as to why it shouldn't exist in the first place. Really, the only thing that all these "cosmologies" have in common is that they aren't the Big Bang. This is something, then, of an invented subject. But as an invented subject that is subject to this discussion, we should be clear that there is a definitive separation between these ideas and standard cosmology. That's where the "disclaimer" comes into play. Joshuaschroeder 20:51, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
The disclaimer should be accurate, not biased, that's all I'm suggesting. Say these are non-standard, and let's leave it at that. I fail to see the necessity of adding the pejoratives on top of that. GordonHogenson 21:54, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Who decided that these terms were pejorative? You did. That's your bias, not mine. Joshuaschroeder 22:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I've explained these edits, so I can't understand why you repeatedly revert with the remark that the edits are not explained!GordonHogenson 20:37, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

What you've explained is your point of view. You haven't justified the edit vis-a-vis an NPOV description of the topic (which may actually be considered to be a problematic one in and of itself). Joshuaschroeder 20:51, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I don't understand this objection. My edits have been to move the topic toward NPOV, which it isn't at the moment, and my justifications have explained this. All you've done is direct me to crank.net as if that provides legitimate references for the scientific community's views. GordonHogenson 21:33, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I claim the topic is NPOV as it stands. Your justifications are a lot of huff and little content. You dislike the descriptions of non-standard, but fail to offer a reason as to why the descriptions are an inappropriate POV or are pejorative. If you want to get into a detail description of each and every nonstandard cosmology mentioned in the article, we can do that. Pjacobi has written about Arp. Would you like to move on to Plasma Cosmology? Joshuaschroeder 22:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Last week's article "Distant Galaxy is Too Massive For Current Theories" demonstrated that aspects of Standard Cosmology are wrong. So would we use the same terminology in describing this aspect of the Standard Cosmology? I think not, and so it should not be used here. --Iantresman 23:10, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I'll bite. What aspect of standard cosmology does this observation prove wrong? Be specific, you'll be graded on your answer. Joshuaschroeder 23:27, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

The article on pseudoscience notes: Often the term is used simply as a pejorative to express the speaker's low opinion of a given field, regardless of any objective measures.

The article on junk science begins with: Junk science is a pejorative term used to derogate purportedly scientific data, research, analyses or claims which are driven by perceived political, financial or other questionable motives.

From the article on fringe science, Fringe science can be distinguished from some similar sounding, but pejorative in nature, categories as follows:

Pseudoscience - Pseudoscience is notoriously lax in rigorous application of the scientific method. Reproducibility is typically a problem. This is not so in fringe science. Junk science - Junk science is used to describe agenda-driven research that ignores certain standard methodologies and practices in an attempt to secure a given result from an experiment. Fringe science, as in standard methodology, proceeds from theory to conclusion with no attempt to direct or coax the result. Bad science - Bad science might more properly be labeled "poor science" in that it is typically characterized by substandard or "sloppy" methodology. Fringe science maintains the normal standards of methodology.

Wikipedia doesn't maintain that "fringe science" is a pejorative itself, but nonetheless the word "fringe" in common usage is used to denigrate, e.g. "lunatic fringe."

You've said that intrinsic red shifts are not fringe science, so that would leave "pseudoscience," "bad science," and "junk science." Since junk science refers to science that is misused by politics, which I don't think anyone has suggested, it's difficult to see how it could apply. That leaves intrinsic redshift as "bad science" or "pseudoscience" both of which are pejorative according to Wikipedia. GordonHogenson 23:38, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Intrinsic redshifts as a phenomenon are very poorly considered by their proponents, failing most notably in the Ockham's Razor end of things but also being propped up by some really bad science in terms of those who like to insert their harebrained schema in the redshift page. You can read all about in on that page's associated talk.
I've tried to make it clear that the non-standard cosmologies are looked down on in science, that's a fact. They are sometimes guilty by association as is the case with the Velikovsky-fanatics adoption of plasma cosmology as their own, but they nevertheless are looked down upon by skeptics.
I agree with you that the scientific community is more cautious than the skeptics. I've rewritten the offending section to illustrate that. We should continue to maintain these terms as a reference since they are used with respect to these ideas (for example, when people are reading about them or asking questions about them to scientists at open lectures). But removing them outright is problematic because they are correct designators for the factual description of nonstandard cosmologies. Joshuaschroeder 23:45, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I believe I've said enough on this for the time being. My thought is the text has moved closer to NPOV, but still has some POV issues. I'd like to hear what others besides Joshua and I think about the current wording and this discussion. Any other readers: what's your perspective on the current text? GordonHogenson 00:42, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

You should start an RfC to get more input. Joshuaschroeder 13:53, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, I started an RfC. GordonHogenson 17:04, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

on NN grounds

The recent deletion by User:Sdedeo on the plea of (rm nn theory) for the Tired light (i.a.) model Scale Expanding Cosmos by Johan Masreliez, raises the issue whether notability criteria can be applied in an article dealing with fringe science, which to me bears the same characteristics as the wiki nn judgement ?? /Kurtan 08:57, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

RfC Summary of Disagreement

There is a disagreement over the neutrality of the article. We've made some progress, and at this point I'd like outside opinion on whether the resulting language is neutral.

Perspective from User:GordonHogenson: The issue as I see it is the treatment of minority perspectives in science. Such minority perspectives should be treated as scientific perspectives, non-standard perspectives, but pejorative terms such as pseudoscience, fringe science, bad science and junk science are inappropriate. The article suggests that the scientific community considers these ideas as "one or more of the above" and leaves it to the imagination of the reader to apply these, perhaps inviting the reader to apply them as broadly as possible. I don't see the evidence that proves that the scientific community views all of the non-standard ideas in this way.

Also, I think there are other problems with POV in this article as well. For example, the characterization of non-standard perspectives as "beliefs" is, to me, troubling, since these are the terms used by skeptics to trivialize minority perspectives, suggesting that they are beyond reason and into the realm of religion or fancy. Also, I find the inclusion of the remarks about proponents of non-standard ideas comparing themselves to Galileo and Einstein to be troubling, as there's no suggestion that these proponents make any such comparison, and there's no reason why this viewpoint of "at least one physicist" is important enough to be included in an encyclopedic article. GordonHogenson 17:15, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Perspective from User:Joshuaschroeder -- apparently Gordon Hogenson, a signer of the Open Letter of New Scientist fame thinks that nonstandard cosmologies are "minority" perspectives in science. As a cosmologist I can tell you that they are at best fringe science perspectives and many are totally outside the purview of physical cosmology. Nevertheless, we should report views that are around, no matter how strange or different. Hogenson's view that the terms are pejorative seems to be a moot point, as is clearly stated in the article right now this is the way they are viewed from a skeptical perspective, for better or worse. Since most of these views are necessarily only addressed from that perspective, it is important, to remain NPOV, that we report such is the case. It is a simple fact that each nonstandard cosmology spends a great deal of time criticizing the Big Bang from the perspective of their ideas being "revolutionary" in a scientific sense. It is important that we report how this comes across when scientists/skeptics evaluate such ideas. We explain in the article why people who are advocates of nonstandard cosmologies disbelieve the Big Bang and the evidence that cosmologists put forward for it, and therefore it is not unreasonable to correctly describe such perspectives as beliefs -- since they are criticized for not following proper methodology, lacking understanding, or having little in the way of explanatory properties. Joshuaschroeder 20:11, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Perspective from User:iantresman (declaring my support for plasma cosmology, and my opinion that Big Bang cosmology is bunkum) (1) Science is impartial, and the subject of the science does not "tinge" it. So the study of plasma cosmology, or UFOs or creationism, does not lessen the science, even if we do not like the subject, nor agree with its objectives. (2) So I consider the terms 'pseudoscience', 'fringe science', 'bad science', and 'junk science' to be perjorative. (3) I wouldn't use these term in a Wikipedia article to apply to Standard Cosmology, even though (a) it features items from the Classifying pseudoscience section, (b) all specialists are fringe scientists in their field as a whole (c) bad/junk science applies to the method, not the subject. --Iantresman 22:18, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunatley for you, many of the main supporters of plasma cosmology would not be pleased with your Velikovskian idealizations. You have also made a poor case for your distrust of standard cosmology -- not able to respond to a simple request above to clarify your position, but of course are entitled to your opinion. Those of your ideas and contributions that are factually problematic and explicitly biased however, they do not belong in an NPOV encyclopedia.
Joshua, you're right, most plasma cosmology supporters would want to have nothing to do with Velikovsky, but what has that to do with anything being discussed here? I'm also a liberal, and no doubt I would have been tarred a communist by McCarthy in the 1950s. I felt the [article reference] above was sufficient and did not require further clarification; it was quite clear "This galaxy contains 8 times the mass of stars as the Milky Way, and really shouldn't exist according to current astronomical theories". If I have any factually problematic contributions, please flag them; I will be happy to provide a reference. And again, if any of my contributions are biased, I will be happy to reconsider them, and again will provide reference for each and every one. --Iantresman 10:18, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
That's not a very specific critique. The sentence makes the bold laim that it "really shouldn't exist according to current astronomical theories", but can you explain why this is the case? What in particular means that it shouldn't exist? The problem is, of course, that people like to bandwagon critique without understanding what is being said. That is definitely the case here, it seems. Joshuaschroeder 12:19, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

All scientific theories are inadequate by definition, otherwise they would be laws.

The distinction between a theory and a law is not that a law is more adequate than a theory. The best science can do is have a theory. A law is simply a succinct summary of ideas related to scientific theories: a succinct summary that is difficult to revise without completely discarding the entire law. Theories are more amenable to modification. It's really poor scholarship to claim that there is an epistemological difference between a theory and a law. Joshuaschroeder 12:19, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Just because PC or QSSM do not predict element abundances does not mean that they are pseudo-science or bad science, any more than the Lambda-CDM model not explaining some of the anisotropies in the WMAP data, or indeed the need to call into existence such things as dark matter, dark energy or inflation to stretch an old idea further than it's Judeo-Christian justification originally intended. The non-standard nature of the article is implied in the title "Non-standard cosmology". You'll need to put in an explanation for why the SZ variations correspond roughly to local galaxy density, why the CMB anisotropy predictions were progessively downgraded from a confident few fractions of a percent (pre-COBE) to the present parts-per-fuckall, why the low angular anisotropies are out from the LCDM model, and why there is a high correlation with both the ecliptic plane and the galactic equator. Once your own house is in order, then you come to our party and poop it. Jon 13:39, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Generally speaking, you can stop to argue factual arguments. It's all about references and weighting the references. As done above at #Arp_section it is for most of non-standard easily shown, that are not seriously considered by the wide majority of current publications. And those papers still argueing the possibility, do it very defensively, see the two concrete examples above. --Pjacobi 14:30, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

The proponents of the non-standard approach often point out, correctly, that there are several papers pointing out discordant data. Some of them have even been correctly cited. For example, Jon cites these effects,

  • the WMAP quadrupole is low, and the chance of this effect occuring randomly seems to be about 2%. If this occured at a high multipole, nobody would care, but since it's the quadrupole it seems a little surprising. The other effects (octopole, alignment with ecliptic) seem to be from foregrounds (Seljak and Slosar, Assessing the effects of foregrounds and sky removal in WMAP).
  • Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect variations correspond with the large scale mass distribution because they're predicted to by the standard big bang cosmology
  • CMB anisotropy predictions fit perfectly well with data, fit using the incredibly simple six-parameter Lambda-CDM model (although only five parameters are really needed). The present χ2 per degree of freedom is about 1.06, which is a little worse than the predicted 1.00, but not much.
An incredibly simple model that requires three entirely invented and arbitrary phenomena for it to even work: inflation, dark matter and dark energy. It would be like Darwin saying that fairies and goblins are responsible for natural selection, and then tweaking an evolutionary model until it fit available observations. It all works perfectly well until someone points out that fairies and goblins don't exist. LCDM does nothing to explain any of the original assumptions - assumptions that were made because observations did not fit the previous predictions of standard cosmology. We only talk about dark matter because of wrong rotation curves, a wrong cosmological density and wrong supercluster motions. We only have dark energy and inflation because the acceleration is all wrong, 1a light curves are wrong and the fact that there are fully evolved galaxies, complete with dust lanes and Pop II stars 10Gly away in a 14Gy old universe. Jon 01:30, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
How are they "entirely invented and aribtrary"? Be specific.
Because they had to be fudged in when observations did not match the theory. They were not arrived at from theory nor derived from or predicted by it, as you seem to claim. For example, inflation was invented by Guth and others in the early 1980s to solve missing monopoles, runaway spacetime curvature and the (problematic at the time) uniform CMB in the Big Bang model of the day. There was and still is no other reason from any other physics to support or explain inflation. How about YOU be specific and explain exactly what inflation is and what exactly caused it?
Inflation is a solution to the Friedmann Equations that yields a metric with an exponential time-dependence. All you need for inflation to happen is a universe with an inflaton field (a scalar field is the easiest, but almost any field will do as symmetry processes take over in higher energy regimes). As expansion progresses in a highly symmetrical universe, it necessarily follows an inflationary paradigm. In fact, it is much more difficult to find the class of universes that don't inflate -- those seem to be a rarer breed of symmetrical early universes. Joshuaschroeder 18:02, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Because you can't, because nobody seems to know, because somebody made it up, because it isn't actually real. Jon 14:11, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
As has been said before, you are entitled to your opinion, but your opinion is clearly slanted toward a bias that is external to the actual ideas being considered. Joke points this out well below. Joshuaschroeder 18:02, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
One way of putting "they had to be fudged in when observations did not match the theory" would be "they were suggested by observations." Which is more NPOV? You wouldn't say that particle physics is an baroque theory because the neutrino (or the neutron!) "had to be fudged in when observations did not mach the theory." Inflation is a falsifiable theory which has correctly accounted for the observed flatness, homogeneity, isotropy of the universe, and quantitatively predicts CMB fluctuations, the spectrum of large scale power, and Lyman-alpha observations, with one parameter, the amplitude of fluctuations (the spectral index is probably between 0.92–0.98 in reasonable inflationary models). Do you not believe in the neutron because we can't calculate its mass from first principles? As Joshua points out, the cosmological constant is predicted by field theory (although the problem of why it is so small is a difficult one, even for alternative cosmologies). There are plenty of fundamental particle physics candidates for dark matter, and perhaps we'll find something at the Large Hadron Collider in a few years. Both the cases for dark energy and dark matter are supported by several complementary, independent observations: I encourage you to read their respective pages on Wikipeda. But we're getting off track here. The fact remains that the big bang theory is far and away the dominant theory, and that the alternatives don't make the quantitative predictions it does. That is why they are relegated to fringe status: because scientists have, by and large, decided that the case for the big bang cosmology is so compelling that the alternatives are not worth contemplating. Regardless of what you think of any of their arguments, this is a fact. –Joke137 14:48, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
While it's true that the detail nature of each of these features of the Big Bang are still being investigated, it is a dishonest characterization to claim that there isn't evidence for each of these ideas. It is fascinating that people so unfamiliar with the way in which evidence is looked at and used in science claim that these aspects are ad hoc. Dark energy isn't even ad hoc. While it was an uncomfortable part of parameter space for many scientists, it's not as though no one had though of such an energy field before. Dark energy wasn't "invented" to explain an "incorrect" observation. To make such a claim smacks of total ignorance of how the subject field has been developing. It's best to keep editors who don't know what they are talking about a healthy distance from articles, I believe. Joshuaschroeder 12:19, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Contrast a few minor discrepancies with the complete absence of quantitative predictions, or even a complete model, from plasma cosmology or the other non-standard alternatives (except for those that have been falsified, like the tired light model or the steady state theory). Proponents of non-standard cosmology use these minor discrepancies as evidence that the theory is in crisis. In 1976, Steven Weinberg wrote the following about the steady-state model

The steady state model does not appear to agree with the observed dL versus z relation or with source counts ... In a sense, the disagreement is a credit to the model; along among all cosmologies, the steady state model makes such definite predictions that it can be disproved even with the limited observational evidence at our disposal.

Well, the big bang model has had ample opportunity to be falsified. It makes clear predictions with only a few, simple input parameters: primordial element abundances, a CMB with a perfectly thermal spectrum, CMB anisotropies, evolution of galaxy morphology, power spectrum of galaxies.

It might fit very well, but it's not a very good model if it's based on unexplained, arbitrary fudges, is it? You may as well base it on aether, superstrings, variable mass, changing Planck's constant, tired light, God, or any other fairy at the bottom of the garden.
What a peculiar critique. You seem to be saying that the Big Bang is dependent on unobserved phenomena, but this simply is a misunderstanding of observation and its implications. If you apply the same standard to science, we would have to say that all of science is based on unexplained, arbitrary fudges. For example, the mathematical consistency we see in nature is unexplained. We have no explanation for why nature prefers to set-up its laws in terms of mathematical formality. This is unexplained and arbitrary. Joshuaschroeder 18:09, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
No, I'm saying that inflation exists only in a mathematician's head, and has no basis in reality.

The mechanism for cosmic inflation has not been found, but the theory makes several simple, robust predictions that have all been borne out very prcecisely in observations.

Except for the missing WIMPs, much lower than expected neutrino masses, unexpectedly hot X-Ray radiating intergalactic medium that should be cold, unexpectedly highly-evolved Hubble UDF galaxies, and so on.
Are the WIMPs really missing? If so, who decided that we should have been able to see them in the first place?
Who is upset by low neutrino masses? Hot dark matter wasn't even the prevailing theory when the masses were discovered.
The IGM is hot in all of the simulations I do. Why do you think it should be cold?
"Highly evolved" is not a very quantitative measurement for what is expected from UDF. As far as I'm concerned, we don't have enough of a handle on the parameter space of the time dependence of the galaxy power spectrum to say whether there is a conflict or not.

Nothing like this case can be made for "non-standard cosmology", which is indeed studied by only a small fringe, as the practitioners themselves readily admit (although they argue that it is the bias of funding agencies). –Joke137 17:40, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

So why are CMB angular correlations flat after 60 degrees, out from this six parameter model by nearly 2 sd? Peratt and others can fit COBE using only 3 parameters from HMHD plasma interactions, with an 0.85 fit. Which is simpler using Occam's razor? Jon 00:35, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

The low l moments are not well measured yet. 2-sigma is debatable error measurement. We aren't sure how global errors transfer into the CMB power spectrum, in particular there is definitely galactic contamination that hasn't been worked out yet. Peratt's fit to COBE is irrelevent. WMAP is what needs to be looked at. Joshuaschroeder 01:03, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

After today's edits by Joke137, I think we're back to NPOV. If these edits persist, I think we can remove the NPOV marking on the topic and consider this dispute resolved. GordonHogenson 19:34, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree, cheers Joke. Jon 23:15, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Change of title to Alternative Cosmology

I changed the title from Non-standard cosmology to Alternative cosmology:

  1. The term "Alternative cosmology" is in more general use. eg:
  • In Google Print, "Alternative cosmology" is used on 100 pages
  • In Google Print, "Alternative cosmologies" is used on 126 pages
  • In the NASA Astrophysical database, "Alternative cosmology/ies" is used on 11 pages
  • In Google Print, "Non-standard cosmology" is used on 3 pages
  • In Google Print, "Non-standard cosmologies" is used on 8 pages
  • In the NASA Astrophysical database, "Non-standard cosmology/ies" is used in 8 papers
  • In total, "Alternative cosmology/ies" is used 237 times, "Non-standard cosmology/ies" is used 19 times, which is a 12-fold difference in use
  1. The term "Alternative cosmology" is less disparaging than "Non-standard cosmology".

--Iantresman 11:20, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm more than happy to discuss a move to the alternative cosmology page, which may indeed be a better title, but we need to address a few points:

  1. "Nonstandard" is not pejorative. It is descriptive and it is a very narrow POV to add what you did to the intro.
  2. Right now there are many references to the term "nonstandard cosmology" or some version on other pages. If we do make a page change we should change these pointers.
  3. There was no evaluation done of how "alternative cosmology" was used in the papers you listed. In particular, there are most certainly some papers that are not talking about "nonstandard cosmologies" but instead are talking about alternate models of mainstream cosmology (such as Lambda-CDM or classical model). As such, your listing above does not convince me that this term is more widely used to describe nonstandard cosmologies. Nevertheless, I think the impulse is a good one because there are a growing number of cosmologists who consider standard or classical cosmology to be a matter-dominated universe without dark energy, thus the need for the disclaimer about what is meant by nonstandard.
  4. Could it be that there is a better term that we haven't thought of? This might be a good change for an RfC.

As such, I think there is compelling reason to revert back to non-standard cosmology for the time being, not the least of which is that you've created a few problematic redirects with the move.

Thanks,

--ScienceApologist 16:32, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

So are you saying Joshua that you will discuss all your changes before making them first, or at least offer a Request for Comment? When you changed the "Electric Universe theory" page, you made it without any discussion first. When you redirected the same page to "Electric Universe (book)" you made it without any discussion first. --Iantresman 18:51, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't object to you being bold in your edits. I just think there are compelling reasons (listed above) to keep the page here. --ScienceApologist 20:42, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
So when you changed the "Electric Universe theory" page title name, and redirected it, both without discussion, are you suggesting that you should have taken your own advice to consult first? --Iantresman 22:21, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Where did I advise to consult first? --ScienceApologist 09:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
NPA please, Iantresman.
Actually, why is it currently Non-standard, as opposed to Nonstandard? -- Ec5618 22:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Where specifically is the personal attack, so I can avoid the same choice of words in the future?
Google shows (excluding Wikipedia sources):
"Nonstandard cosmology" = [139 refs]
"Non-standard cosmology" = [397 refs]
"Alternative cosmology" = [542 refs]
In other words, the preferable usage is shown by the numbers. --Iantresman 23:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
You suggested that another editor has violated wikiquette in another article, which might seem like an attempt to undermine that editor's credibility.
Sorry to be dense, but where specifically is the personal attach? Which phrase? --Iantresman 08:17, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
And as ScienceApologist, has suggested, its possible that, while the term 'alternative cosmology' may be used in many articles, it has yet to be proven that these articles are using the term to refer to the topic of this article. As an analogy, consider that 'cosmology' yields 13,300,000 hits, which, following your logic, would force us to rename the article 'cosmology'. 'tree' yields 216,000,000 hits. Your 'most common' term might not refer to the subject matter. -- Ec5618 00:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Sure it's possible that 'alternative cosmology' and 'non-standard cosmology' are used in way that is not consistent with this article. But I've provide evidence that 'alternative cosmology' is the more common usage, it is up to someone else to demonstrate otherwise. --Iantresman 16:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Title survey

The term 'alternative cosmology' is used in many articles. Nonstandard is less decriptive and can be considered contemptuous (though it is not a term of disparagement). 'Alternative cosmology' is a more inclusive term, also.

Please sign your name using three tildes (~~~) under the position you support, possibly adding a brief comment. Extended commentary should be placed below, in the section marked "Discussion".

  • Use "Alternative Cosmology"
  • Use "Non-standard cosmology"
    • [user]

Discussion

[Discussion here...]

Big Bang Theory gets most of the funding

Maybe it's worth pointing out (at the risk of sounding obvious) - the Big Bang theory gets most of the funding for research, as mentioned in the "Open Letter to the Scientific Community" in the main article. Anyone who wants to research alternative/non-standard cosmologies is unlikely to get funding, and is likely to be ostracised by most mainstream scientists. This means that most of the research performed is on aspects of the Big Bang theory. Therefore the research is likely to find something, sooner or later, that supports the theory! Any data which does not goes unnoticed, or is ignored, or is regarded as "noise" in the welter of data produced. If you throw two dice repeatedly, looking for two sixes, you will eventually get two sixes, but you may well not have noticed the two fives you got on the way.

Any findings of research, if there are any, are therefore likely to support the prevailing theory, and other phenomena are likely to be passed over (probably quite innocently) as irrelevant noise. Anyone who disagrees with the prevailing theory is criticised for pushing "original research". Since virtually no publications are produced on non-Big Bang cosmology, anyone who tries to disagree with the Big Bang theory is criticised for saying things which are "unverified" and "without citation". Since most researchers support the theory they are working on, it becomes the mainstream opinion, and so any other opinion becomes "fringe" or "non-neutral". The whole subject therefore gravitates to one big self-perpetuating theory. ~~

Also, Big Bang supporters say that criticisms of their theory are "unscientific" because of the lack of research, and lack of published material, supporting those criticisms. In this they are, very strictly speaking, right. A bit worrying, really.

The funding is already mentioned in the article. No need to beat the reader over the head with it. --ScienceApologist 19:10, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

This is hackneyed bullshit. The big bang is well supported by a wealth of data, such as WMAP, the SDSS, 2dFGRS, BBN light element abundances... These observations in no way assume the big bang.

You are right, they don't, but the big bang has to assume dark matter, dark energy and inflation first before it is "well supported" by the wealth of data. These assumptions only arise because big bang wasn't well supported by new observations, and don't actually add any explanatory power to the theory. Even if LCDM is correct, what does it tell us about dark matter, dark energy or inflation? Fuck all. Jon 11:22, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
That statement is patently false. Luckily nothing like that statement is anywhere in Wikipedia because there is literally no source that says this except for that which Jon writes. --ScienceApologist 11:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

The people who latch on to any shred of evidence that supports their contention, totally disregarding the big picture, are the proponents of non-standard cosmology (e.g. low-l multipole alignments, supposed Sunyaev-Zel'dovich anomalies, apparent anomalies with BBN, non-gaussianity in the CMB etc...). –Joke 19:40, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Arp text citatations

ScienceApologist, another editor requested citations in two paragraphs of text, which you have removed [1], ignored, and not commented on. At the very least, and explanation would be courteous. --Iantresman 10:08, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The person who did not comment on the tags was the person who put them there in the first place. If you would like to reinstate the tags and ask for the information specifically, be my guest. --ScienceApologist 10:14, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
One of the three main policies of Wikipedia, is that of Verifiability. The tag ‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.› [citation needed] is a reminder that the preceeding sentence could do with some form of verification based on an established citation, as is described if you click on the link included. It seems somewhat redundant to insert the tag, AND, ask for the information, as I would suspect that one or the other would suffice.
So I've reverted the request for citations by the previous editor, and kindly ask you, or another editor, to provide some verification of the statements specified.
I also think that the paragraphs deviate from NPOV style, as contructions like "The biggest problem...", are clearly judgemental and subjective, and the rest of the paragraph comes across as a debate, rather than stating the published view.
--Iantresman 11:38, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
I have no problem with requests for citation, but please indicate what fact you would like cited. I'd kindly ask you to help provide citations rather than just tagging an article. Presumably you know what points you think we need citations for, so why not write for the enemy and post your own citations? --ScienceApologist 11:40, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
I am the one who made the initial ‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.› [citation needed] requests. I apologize for any lack of explanation and for not using an account. I am new to wikipedia. As you requested, here are the changes that I think are necessary. It seems that at least one other editor is in agreement with me, so please do not simply remove the {{Fact}} tags and say, "do it yourself". I am NOT the one who placed argumentative statements without reference into an encyclopedia. If you want those two paragraphs to stay, they will have to be backed up by external works. The information contained in these paragraphs may seem like common knowledge to you, but I am a layman in cosmology and so are most readers of wikipedia. Let us see the works which make these arguments and decide for ourselves.
"a number of host galaxies have been observed ... which indicates that those quasars at least really are at cosmological distances": Please provide references to the surveys in which these where discovered; or to some published work which also references them.
"Arp's analysis, according to most scientists, suffers from being based on small number statistics...": Either give a list of scientists who claim this, or remove "according to most scientists" altogether. My preference would be to see a reference to some published statistical analysis of Arp's work that demostrates the claimed statement.
"Unbiased samples of sources, ... show none of the proposed 'irregularities'...": Please, also provide a reference to some work which supports this claim.
"Most cosmologists see this missing theoretical work as sufficient reason to explain the observations as either chance or error.": Again, the use of "most cosmologists" is inappropriate. Please state who they are.
Thanks. --Uglyfazhoule 22:12, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanations. Beginning the hunt for references. (Two done already.) --ScienceApologist 01:01, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
You are more reasonable than I had guessed. Thanks. --72.56.111.23 01:08, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
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