Salutatio Keith!
21-Feb-98, Keith Knapp wrote to Richard Meic
          Subject: Time and Again
 KK> RM>This is true, however should there not be more rigorous
 KK> attempts to RM>refute the BB model(s) thus either exposing the
 KK> real problems or (if RM>the attempts are unsuccessful) providing
 KK> support automatically?
 KK> It is indeed an unconscious habit of human beings that when we
 KK> come up with an explanation, we tend to look for support for it,
 KK> even though the most parsimonious way to proceed would be to look
 KK> for something that kills the hypothesis.  That is one of the major
 KK> occupatinal hazards of science.
I am referring to the scientific method.  "Refutation" is how the
scientific method works and that is not what has been employed with the
BB cosmologies.  IOW, BB cosmologists do not use the scientific method,
but use an altered method that they CALL scientific.
 KK> In that sense, the plasma cosmology was important if only because
 KK> it used mostly the same data that the BB modelers were using, but
 KK> came to very different conclusion.  In a sense it doesn't really
 KK> matter whether the plasma cosmology is right or wrong -- what
 KK> matters is that no accurate cosmology can ignore plasmas.
Correct!
 KK> Simply RM>looking for support is not very scientific at all and
 KK> ranks up there RM>with religion and pseudoscience.
 KK> To rank it with pseudoscience would be to rank it with perpetual
 KK> motion machines, etc.
     
That was my intent... the BB is pseudoscience.
 KK> It think what is happening with the BB
 KK> models is that when a generation grows up with a particular
 KK> paradigm, it becomes part of the environment, like Coca-Cola or
 KK> smog, and people forget to look at the basic assumptions.
                                              
This may also be true, but we are talking about what has been always 
referred to as "science".  True science is very unforgiving.  
 KK> An even more important issue is that we need more data, and it
 KK> will be very expensive to get those data.  The current
 KK> proliferation of hypotheses is typical in situations where there
 KK> are enough data to support all of them but not enough to kill any
 KK> of them.  NASA is cooking up a couple of 'next generation' space
 KK> telescopes, but they aren't gonna fly for at least five years.
                                                
The steady state theories have been refuted long ago, creation theory (I
use the word "theory" very loosely here) is unprovable (or if you will
non-disprovable), and the BB theories are disprovable at the most basic 
level (ie. the presence of infinities in a, so called, finite universe, 
and the inability to actually derive anything meaningful those few
millionths of a second after the "so called" big bang).  Plasma cosmology
does not involve any major cataclysm as a precursor to the universe's
existence.  The BBT starts from an assumed beginning to everything and
tries (but fails) to arrive at the present universal structure.  PC
works back from the present to increasingly more remote periods in the
universe's history, and so far there is no need for any beginning at
all.  PC just looks much more logically derived.
 RM>> RM>> Sounds like a good policy.  Consider that 99% of the
 RM>> universe is RM>> highly conductive plasma,
 KK>> Plasmas are highly ionized, and can therefore conduct electricity
 KK>> and can therefore generate huge magnetic fields.  These EM fields
 KK>> apparently explain a number of cosmological puzzles.
 KK> RM>For example?
 KK> Just the ones in Lerner's book -- formation of stars and galxies,
 KK> transfer of angular momentum from the sun to the planets, etc.
Okay, just checking. ;)
 KK>> Plasma physics was a relatively obscure field until just this
 KK>> decade.
 KK> RM>Plasma physics itself was not recognized cosmologically until
 KK> the last RM>decade.  The filamentry structure of the universe is
 KK> just now becoming RM>accepted.  The slow plodding pace of
 KK> scientific revolution continues.
 KK> Yeah, but it's always been like that.  
     
Very true.
 KK> If you look at the leading
 KK> edge of any scientific field, it always seems to be in a state of
 KK> crisis. It was only 80-some years ago that most astronomers
 KK> thought certain objects they observed were objects within the
 KK> Milky Way, and it took Edwin Hubble to show that they were
 KK> actually galaxies the same size as the Milky Way, and at
 KK> outrageous distances.
          
To be more accurate, they had no idea that the universe has the complex
structure we know of now.  Hubble aided in removing such ignorance.  Do 
note, though, that Hubble merely mentioned the idea of an expanding 
universe in passing, and he was not really that serious about it.  It 
took the rest of the astronomical community to grab his ball and run 
with it,... now look at what we got.
 KK>> Mr Meic has been reading a very interesting book called "The Big
 KK>> Bang Never Happened," by Eric Lerner.  Even if you don't give a
 KK>> hoot about cosmology, you would probably find it a good read
 KK>> because of its discussion of the philosophy and psychology of
 KK>> science held by many recent physicists.
 KK> RM>Thank you for acknowledging alternative sources for
 KK> information. :)
 KK> Well, since I'm not a physicist or a creationist, I don't have any
 KK> strong emotional attachment to a particular model.
                                    
I used to be a Big Banger until I read up on Plasma Cosmology, weighed 
the two and found PC the victor.  No, I am not a physicist either, and 
you know I am not a creationist.
 Dicere...
 email address (vrmeic@spots.ab.ca)
Richard Meic
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