[[Mod. note -- Recent posts in this thread seems to be diverging from
the science into meta-discussions about science. I hope future posters
can focus on the actual science itself.
-- jt]]

Thus spake Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply
LOTHESvax.de
In article , jacob navia
writes:

I would like to know what the experts here have to say about this:

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/St...d_Theory_Of_Co
smology_Into_Crisis_999.html

The title shows a basic misunderstanding of how science works. It is
extremely rare that one study can plunge a well established theory into
crisis. At most, it might give a hint of the direction of modification
of the theory.

A flurry of similar articles has appeared in the last days:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0505061949.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0422085830.htm

There was one in the online edition of Der Spiegel (most important and
best German weekly news magazine) and I followed the links to the
original papers. I'm not a total sceptic regarding MOND, but I think
that any evidence for it, in order to be convincing, has to be
straightforward and free of any "fudge factors". In other words, the
work in question is too complex to see a clear signal for MOND. At most
a hint, but there are more convincing hints.

I would have said that cosmology is already in crisis, and has been for
some time. Neither MOND nor CDM give consistent accounts of the
behaviour of matter, and both exist in a number of flavours and
variants, followed by different schools and individuals who stick their
heads in the sand and ignore evidence contrary to their opinion.

Although this should be considered crank behaviour, it is actually
normal in a period of crisis that this accounts for the behaviour of the
majority of scientists, who therefore refuse to acknowledge that there
is a crisis.

According to patterns of previous crises, the resolution will not have
much to do with any of the competing theories, and the fact of crisis
will not be widely recognised until after it is resolved, and even then
the main advocates of the different schools will not recognise the
resolution.



Regards

--
Charles Francis
moderator sci.physics.foundations.
charles (dot) e (dot) h (dot) francis (at) googlemail.com (remove spaces and
braces)

http://www.rqgravity.net