A Simple Question

The Moderator has commented in the Cooray et al thread:

"[Mod. note: it's fairly standard scientific practice to consider a
theory falsified when its predictions are proved wrong, irrespective
of how many other correct predictions or 'retrodictions' it makes.
In that context there is nothing wrong with being 'selective' about
the evidence one considers. "
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My question is whether we should regard the standard cosmological model falsified due to the fact that its dark matter pseudo-prediction ('some kind of WIMP') has failed 40 years worth of astrophysical and Earth-based tests?

The references for the hundreds of non-detections of WIMPs can be readily found by searching arxiv.org.

If the answer to my question is negative (perhaps because some corners of the parameter space are still being combed for the putative WIMPs), then I wonder why the standard cosmological paradigm is given a free pass on this falsified-to-date prediction, and why the discrete self-similar cosmological paradigm is not afforded the same tolerance and optimism.

If we summarily rejected any theory that encountered difficulties with one of its predictions, then I think we would have thrown out a lot of babies with the bathwater.

The real world and real science involve far more complications and uncertainties than the black/white comment above suggests.

We may like one theory and dislike another. That is human nature. However, healthy science requires that we evaluate them both by the same standards, and carefully compensate for our subjective biases.

Robert L. Oldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

On 11/5/2012 2:36 PM, Robert L. Oldershaw wrote:
The Moderator has commented in the Cooray et al thread:

"[Mod. note: it's fairly standard scientific practice to consider a
theory falsified when its predictions are proved wrong, irrespective
of how many other correct predictions or 'retrodictions' it makes.
In that context there is nothing wrong with being 'selective' about
the evidence one considers. "
-------------------------------------------------------------------

My question is whether we should regard the standard
cosmological model falsified due to the fact that its dark
matter pseudo-prediction ('some kind of WIMP') has failed
40 years worth of astrophysical and Earth-based tests?

You can be reassured. The tests were by far not exhaustive,
so in this particular case non-detection is no falsification.

The references for the hundreds of non-detections of
WIMPs can be readily found by searching arxiv.org.

You can also find hundreds of non-detections of the
Higgs particle, spanning even more than 40 years. In
that case as well, the tests were not exploring the
entire model space and for that reason no falsification.

...
If we summarily rejected any theory that encountered
difficulties with one of its predictions,

The Higgs theory did not encounter difficulties with
its predictions. Neither does the theory of the
existence of WIMPs.

then I think we would have thrown out a lot of babies
with the bathwater.

If, on the other hand, there is a difficulty with a
"definitive prediction" or even with several definitive
predictions, then we can of course safely discard the
theory. Or don't you think so?

--
Jos

On Nov 5, 7:36*am, "Robert L. Oldershaw"
wrote:
The Moderator has commented in the Cooray et al thread:

"[Mod. note: it's fairly standard scientific practice to consider a
theory falsified when its predictions are proved wrong, irrespective
of how many other correct predictions or 'retrodictions' it makes.
In that context there is nothing wrong with being 'selective' about
the evidence one considers. "
-------------------------------------------------------------------

My question is whether we should regard the standard cosmological model falsified due to the fact that its dark matter pseudo-prediction ('some kind of WIMP') has failed 40 years worth of astrophysical and Earth-based tests?

No, because the theory of dark matter no more depends on its'
composition than the theory of luminious matter.

Please stop misrepresenting dark matter. You are the only one who ever
brings up WIMPs.


The references for the hundreds of non-detections of WIMPs can be readily found by searching arxiv.org.

An utterly baffling statement given the far stronger non-existence of
your ultracompacts, which unlike WIMPs, are actually instrumental to
your numerology.


If the answer to my question is negative (perhaps because some corners of the parameter space are still being combed for the putative WIMPs), then I wonder why the standard cosmological paradigm is given a free pass on this falsified-to-date prediction, and why the discrete self-similar cosmological paradigm is not afforded the same tolerance and optimism.

1) It isn't given "a free pass". The composition of dark matter is one
of the largest unsolved problems of modern physics. It, however, is
not actually relevant to dark matter's place in cosmology.

2) It isn't "falsified" either because WIMP covers a very large number
of different and mutually exclusive theories.

3) Your numerology is not given a pass because your very specific
predictions have been falsified. We have been over this and it is not
clear why you keep re-opening the subject.


If we summarily rejected any theory that encountered difficulties with one of its predictions, then I think we would have thrown out a lot of babies with the bathwater.

"One of" ?

The only predictions of yours that have not been falsified are ones in
which there isn't sufficient data available.


The real world and real science involve far more complications and uncertainties than the black/white comment above suggests.

Then why do you deliberately not use standard scientific techniques
such as "error analysis"?


We may like one theory and dislike another. That is human nature. However, healthy science requires that we evaluate them both by the same standards, and carefully compensate for our subjective biases.

Robert L. Oldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativityhttp://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

On Monday, November 5, 2012 9:25:38 AM UTC-5, Jos Bergervoet wrote:

You can also find hundreds of non-detections of the
Higgs particle, spanning even more than 40 years. In
that case as well, the tests were not exploring the
entire model space and for that reason no falsification.

The Higgs theory did not encounter difficulties with
its predictions. Neither does the theory of the
existence of WIMPs.

----------------------------------------------------------

I wonder if you are fully aware of the fact that before the LHC came online, the pseudo-predictions of the Higgs mass ranged from roughly 100 GeV to roughly 800 GeV. The standard model of particle physics was unable to predict the Higgs mass definitely. The particle physicist Hutchinson, writing in Nature, commented that the most reasonable Higgs mass derived from the standard model would be roughly the Planck mass at 10^19 GeV!!!

Scientists who are careful and objective still refer to the boson resonance discovered at the LHC recently as "Higgs-like" because some of its inferred properties deviate from expectations.

The attitudes I am encountering: near religious faith in the old paradigm and outright hostility to the new discrete self-similar paradigm are familiar and have been discussed cogently and with historical examples by Thomas Kuhn.

Given the "nightmare scenario" unfolding at the LHC, the continuing confusion regarding the dark matter (not a small part of the cosmos!), and the wealth of fascinating new astrophysical discoveries, is it not time for a more open-minded attitude towards the shortcomings of the old paradigm and the potentials of various new ideas?

Robert L. Oldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

On 11/5/2012 5:22 PM, Robert L. Oldershaw wrote:
On Monday, November 5, 2012 9:25:38 AM UTC-5, Jos Bergervoet wrote:

You can also find hundreds of non-detections of the
Higgs particle, spanning even more than 40 years. In
that case as well, the tests were not exploring the
entire model space and for that reason no falsification.

The Higgs theory did not encounter difficulties with
its predictions. Neither does the theory of the
existence of WIMPs.

I wonder if you are fully aware of the fact that before
the LHC came online, the pseudo-predictions of the Higgs
mass ranged from roughly 100 GeV to roughly 800 GeV.

I confess I am somewhat uncertain about what you mean
with "pseudo-predictions". We know of course that the
mass is not restricted by the Higgs mechanism itself
(which can be present at any mass scale) but that the
range is nevertheless restricted by experiments that
do not see the Higgs itself. Is that what you mean?

The attitudes I am encountering: near religious faith
in the old paradigm and outright hostility to the new
...

Hmm.. Not in the Higgs case I would say. It is more the
opposite! Lots of people will be (a bit) disappointed if
it turns out to be exactly as predicted in 1964:
http://www.thphys.uni-heidelberg.de/...eAdv/Higgs.pdf

...
is it not time for a more open-minded attitude towards
the shortcomings of the old paradigm and the potentials
of various new ideas?

Shouldn't we let nature be the judge of that?! A plain
standard-model Higgs (if confirmed) will only show us
that sometimes new ideas are *not* necessary and it's
back to 1964.. Even after about 60 years of non-detection
the old ideas might simply turn out to be true after all!

--
Jos

In article , "Robert L.
Oldershaw" writes:

The attitudes I am encountering: near religious faith in the old
paradigm and outright hostility to the new discrete self-similar
paradigm are familiar and have been discussed cogently and with
historical examples by Thomas Kuhn.

Where are you encountering them? Take the cosmological constant.
Today, it is part of the standard cosmological model. 20 years ago, it
wasn't---because there weren't enough data available to say one way or
the other, so many people (not all) assumed it was 0, at least until
better data came along. But now the data are so good that even the
sceptics have been convinced. Science is self-correcting.

DSR is hardly new; you've been touting it for decades. Long enough for
people to examine its predictions and find them wanting since they have
been falsified. Yes, scientists might be hostile to it, like they are
hostile to the idea of angels pushing along the planets or the Sun as a
god. Nothing wrong with that, as long as it is judged on the basis of
evidence.

In article , "Robert L.
Oldershaw" writes:

My question is whether we should regard the standard cosmological
model falsified due to the fact that its dark matter pseudo-prediction
('some kind of WIMP') has failed 40 years worth of astrophysical and
Earth-based tests?

No, because there is no such prediction. Different people mean
different things by "standard cosmological model" but apart from you I
know of no-one who uses it to include "some kind of WIMP". The reason
WIMPs are still in the running as a candidate is because essentially all
other candidates are hard to detect. The neutrino is also a weakly
interacting particle, and it took decades to detect it.

The references for the hundreds of non-detections of WIMPs can be
readily found by searching arxiv.org.

First, in this case, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Rather, non-detections decrease the allowed parameter space, but there
is still some allowed parameter space left.

If the answer to my question is negative (perhaps because some corners
of the parameter space are still being combed for the putative WIMPs),
then I wonder why the standard cosmological paradigm is given a free
pass on this falsified-to-date prediction,

You are contradicting yourself. If there is some parameter space still
allowed, then it has not been falsified. Once a theory is falsified, it
is falsified forever (DSR and its falsified prediction of electron
substructure at a specific scale is a prime example); there is no such
thing as falsified-to-date in the sense that it might be unfalsified in
the future.

and why the discrete self-similar cosmological paradigm is not afforded
the same tolerance and optimism.

Because one of its "definitive predictions" (your words) has been
falsified.

If we summarily rejected any theory that encountered difficulties with
one of its predictions, then I think we would have thrown out a lot of
babies with the bathwater.

There is a difference between a difficulty and a falsified prediction.

We may like one theory and dislike another. That is human nature.
However, healthy science requires that we evaluate them both by the same
standards, and carefully compensate for our subjective biases.

Right. This is why DSR fails. Show me one other theory which
mentions "definitive prediction" in the abstract of the corresponding
article which a) has been falsified and b) is nevertheless still
considered as a viable theory.

On Nov 5, 10:22*am, "Robert L. Oldershaw"
wrote:

[...]

The attitudes I am encountering: near religious faith in the old paradigm and outright hostility to the new discrete self-similar paradigm are familiar and have been discussed cogently and with historical examples by Thomas Kuhn.

It isn't hostility, Robert. Its' disinterst until you start pushing a
falsified theory. You've been pushing this stuff around for 25+ years
and there continues to be no interest. Have you ever asked yourself
why?

Where's the discussion of why electron substructure DOESN'T falsify
your numerology?
Where's the discussion of why microlensing DOESN'T falsify your
numerology?
Where's the discussion of why the lack of discretization in stellar
and planetary masses DOESN'T falsify your numerology?

Why are you pushing your numerology in newsgroups and comment sections
of web pages rather than in scientific jounals?

Get off the cross, Robert. We need the wood.

In article , Phillip
Helbig---undress to reply writes:

No, because there is no such prediction. Different people mean
different things by "standard cosmological model" but apart from you I
know of no-one who uses it to include "some kind of WIMP". The reason
WIMPs are still in the running as a candidate is because essentially all
other candidates are hard to detect.

That should be "...because essentially all other candidates have been
ruled out observationally", i.e. they are NOT hard to detect. Should we
be worried that essentially the only remaining candidate is hard to
detect (and we don't even know how hard)? No, since "hard to detect" is
in relation to our technology and the time and effort we put into the
search for dark matter. For the same reason, one shouldn't be surprised
to find some lost object in the last place one looks.

Robert L. Oldershaw wrote:
My question is whether we should regard the standard cosmological
model falsified due to the fact that its dark matter pseudo-prediction
('some kind of WIMP') has failed 40 years worth of astrophysical
and Earth-based tests?

Two comments:

(a)
I wouldn't characterise dark matter as primarily a prediction from
*cosmology*. Rather, I'd credit galaxy rotation curves (both for
our own Milky Way galaxy and other nearby galaxies) as being the
key data arguing for dark matter or modified gravity. See, for example,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_... _the_problem
The galaxies in question are all close enough that we can analyse
them (and infer that either there's dark matter and/or there's some
sort of modified gravity) *without* worrying about cosmology.

(b)
It's not clear to me that, assuming that some model predicts
WIMP-dark-matter, that it's reasonable to say that that prediction
has failed.

A useful historical analogy is the prediction by the Copernican
model of the solar system that all stars should show an annual
parallax. Because stars are very far away, this parallax is very
small, so it's hard to measure; the first successful measurement
wasn't until 1838 (by Bessel, today best known for what we call
"Bessel functions").

So... what could we say about the prediction in the year 1800? If
it's legitimate to say that a prediction of WIMP-dark-matter has
"failed 40 years worth of astrophysical and Earth-based tests",
then it's also legitimate to say that as of the year 1800, the
prediction of stellar parallax had, as of 1800, failed over 250
years of astronomical tests. (I'm counting starting at the publication
of Copernicus's "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" in 1543).

Or for that matter, as of 1950 Pauli's 1930 prediction of the
existence of neutrinos had failed 20 years of experimental tests.

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]"
Dept of Astronomy & IUCSS, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
on sabbatical in Canada starting August 2012
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam