Talk:Bogdanov affair/Archive 7

message: This article gives a good record of the Affair itself, but something I don't see is the content of the Bogdanov theory. Maybe I'd be able to find it somewhere in the archives of this page or so, but why isn't it simply in the article? Ucucha (talk) 14:59, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The article states that it is a "proposed theory for describing what occurred before the Big Bang". Two links are provided in the article -  and  (see sections Résumé en anglais) - which offer brief summaries in English of the theory. If you, or anyone else, could provide an understandable one-line summary for each, I think it would be a useful addition to the article. Ze miguel 15:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Mmm.. I fear I can't :-(. The summary should be understandable for non-physicists too; that summary is not. Thanks for your answer anyway. Ucucha (talk) 16:37, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  You might look at this post by a physicist, which is quite clear, and not with too many buzzwords. Ze miguel 16:42, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  i personally do not think that the nitty-gritty details of cosmology (as well as a lot of other technical details of arcane physical theories such as GR or strings) can be protrayed in such a way for mortal non-physicists to really understand.  the basis of this article was based on what other physicists have been saying about the Bogdanov theory and some of the antics of the Bogdanovs in response to criticism.  i also think that this article should settle down a lot with very little mods until someday that it might be less contentious. r b-j 19:39, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, but isn't the content of their theory the most important thing whatsoever? I'd really like to have some explanation about it in the article. Ucucha (talk) 20:17, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Content? 

message: Unprotecting the page and hoping for the best. It's been 2-3 days since it was protected. Just a warning...the arbcom decision is still in full effect. I plan on monitoring this page. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 09:19, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Unprotection

message: I was just re-reading Sokal's follow-up essay on his parody, and it got me thinking in the postmodern vein.  Wouldn't this article be an ideal subject for some Lacanian-Foucaultian-Derridian wordplay?  It reminds me of the old line, "the map is not the territory" — here, the map has been changed around by the people who want to reshape the territory.
I could probably pick up another degree if I put a little effort into a thesis on the postmodernity and hypertextuality of Wikipedia.  Anyone feel like joining forces on this task?  If Sokal's evidence is worth anything, no previous experience in the field is required.  How about we take it over to Wikicities and do some, ahem, Original Research?
Anville 23:45, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deconstruction fodder 

message: I agree fully with Laurence. In my opinion, the participants in this article do not integrate the whole of the elements concerning this affair which is too complex to be treated by nonqualified  editors in the field of theoretical physics. It is clear that an editor as the astrophysicist Alain R is partial in his conclusions. In particular, I was very surprised that after having promised a response to criticisms emitted by a student in theoretical physics as for his analysis on  Bogdanoffs work, Alain R did not finally publish any answer. That means that the very precise arguments suggested by this student in physics are founded and that criticisms of Alain R against Bogdanoffs are disqualified. The "Small voyage in Bogdanoff Universe" (Alain R critics against Bogdanoffs)  is the perfect example of the very suspect character of the negative opinions emitted against  Bogdanoffs work. Initially, whereas criticisms do not have the qualifications necessary for a good comprehension of this work (in this precise case, Alain R is a nonqualified astrophysicist in the fields treated by Bogdanoffs) this does not prevent them from publishing negative conclusions. In the second time, when precise arguments are opposed to them, these editors are then unable to justify their conclusions and, like Alain R, do not answer criticisms. Do you find normal that one builds an article on the basis of editors (as Alain R and others)  who are unable to justify their criticisms?  As far as I am concerned, I repeat it, these methods do nothing but highlight the partiality of this article and the limits of the Wikipedia system.
: Igor, it appears that Alain has responded to you at Talk:Bogdanov_Affair#On_some_difficulties_with_.22A_small_Journey_in_the_Bogdanoff_universe_.22II. r b-j 06:12, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The symptomatic non response of Alain R

message: Igor, via a sock puppet, has complained many times that there were 3 review statemens of his thesis (all positive) yet none of Grichka's and has used that as a excuse to vandalize the whole page (which he continues to do in the most immature manner for a middle-aged man).  i would like to remove that pretext for vandalism from him, but i need a little help (from a Francophone that has access to the review somewhere and not Igor or one of his groupies).  the review statement that Igor tried to insert is:
:Dmitri Gourevich on Gricha"s thesis "In an important theorem of the section 3.3, the author has build the general form of a cocycle bicrossproduct of a new kind.  This general construction allowed him to realise a « twisted » bicross product (in Drinfled sense) between the  Lorentzian and Euclidean Hopf algebras structures within a unique quantum group structure. Incontestably, the author brings an interesting theoretical contribution."
now, i see English usage mistakes that makes me think that this was translated into English. being that it was likely translated and also supplied by Igor, i am skeptical about its accuracy.  it may have been slanted to his POV (with words like "Incontestably", etc.)  he has done this deliberate mistranslation before.
so i propose that we include this statement, in lieu of one of the 3 statements regarding Igor's thesis, after a French speaking editor has checked it, and we make sure the English usage is correct.  we should differentiate the two remaining statement about Igor's thesis as regarding Igor's, just as this is regarding Grichka's.
none of the other edits (mostly deleting of accurate information that is unflattering to the Bogdanovs) that Igor has repeatedly attempted to slip in should go in. r b-j 17:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: then, in that case, we'll leave it as it is or, if you want, i'll take out one of the report statements regarding Igor's thesis.  i did misread the complaint, reading that we had no representative statement for Grichka's thesis.  the fact that one of the brothers is represented slightly more than the other is a peripheral issue and confirms my belief that Igor is using peripheral issues as an excuse to make wholesale changes to make the article more flattering to him. r b-j 18:56, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Note also that this sentence for Mr Gurevich does not come from his thesis report. In principle, one chooses two or three referees who read the thesis before the defense. These people then decide whether the thesis can be defended or not. They state this in the so-called thesis report. Then there is the defense, after which the whole commitee writes the defense report. In Grichka's case the commitee decided not to award the thesis and requested that the manuscript should be deeply modified. I do not know the details of such procedure, but basically such a decision is equivalent to sentencing to death the scientific career of the student. It seems that Grichka's advisor then asked him to modify his manuscript in collaboration with various people. He apparently asked these people to send him a comment about Grichka's modifications. At some epoch the brothers had made all these documents available online, but it does not seem to be the case. It is very clear that the five people who helped Grichka after his defense did not write any official report about it, but merely had some short email exchange with Grichka's advisor. The above sentence from Mr Gourevich come from such email. It is not an official thesis report (in the sense that is given to this term), and actually it does not bear any mention that could authenticate it. There is no handwritten signature, so it could very well have been modified or invented by the brothers (just compare some reports written in English with the French translation the brothers published in their book). Still, there is a true official thesis report written in Feb 1999 by Mr Gurevich, which is positive although not as enthusiastic as the extract proposed here. So if something has to be included from Mr Gurevich, it has to come from his only official thesis report, not a private email communication of unknown origin. Btw, if some modifications are planned in the corresponding section of the article, one should also remove the sentence claiming that there were 15 thesis reports. This is wrong. There were three thesis reports for Grichka, followed by six emails from the people that helped Grichka (one of them wrote two emails), but these emails are not official reports (I checked this with some of these people). Igor got two thesis reports for his first thesis that he failed to defend. Then he got two reports for his second thesis. So if one considers the two thesis that were awarded, there was a total of five thesis reports, as well as the two defense reports that the brothers never published. So the correct figure is five, possibly seven if one includes the defense reports (but I doubt they are very positive), not fifteen. Alain Riazuelo 23:23, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  then, Alain, i certainly encourage you to fix anything in the article that you know is factually incorrect.  those quotes were supplied by Igor and were left by the big rewrite the admins did in an attempt to quiet down the controversy.  i assumed that there was some confirmation of the veracity of the quotes.  anyway, i know you're busy, but if there is anything in the article that you know is factually wrong, please, by all means, correct it.  thanks. r b-j 00:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A proposed concession to the Bogdanovs 

message: post from User:Davis K removed as per WP:RPA --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 12:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Rhdriuhruidh = Davis K = usual Igor'

message: On request from R b-j, please find my attempt to translate the Ciel & Espace article The mystification of the Bogdanovs . It is a quite fun article, and also quite ironic, but it also contains some data which is still missing from the Wikipedia article. Enjoy :) -- Ze miguel 21:50, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, I hadn't realized it represents a copyright violation. The article will be deleted. Erm, is it OK if I share it privately with whoever is interested ? -- Ze miguel 22:25, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably - there's certainly nothing I can do about it. :) Phil Sandifer 00:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

text:  The article is now available here. Ze miguel 10:30, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation of Ciel & Espace article 

message: Due to persistent personal attacks and arguments from this user, I am now imposing a "soft ban" on  from editing this talk page. This means that any edits by this user should be reverted, and if this user persists in editing this talk page a suitable block should be imposed. Thank you. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 00:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Softban of User:Davis K from this talk page 

message: The volleys of invective tearing back and forth across this page would probably be interesting to a student of human nature, should such a person care to dredge through them all.  However, buried within it all was a sensible request for a summary of the Bogdanov's theory, written for a general audience.  I think this is a worthwhile endeavour, though not in the way that Carl Sagan's Cosmos or even Barton Zwiebach's A First Course in String Theory enrich life.  Building a good popularization or bringing an advanced topic to the undergraduate level help identify the critical pieces of a theory, and they stimulate scientists to think beyond equations.  Reading Asimov, Gonick or Thorne can benefit even the most tenured professor, particularly when it comes to teaching those pesky freshmen who come into Newtonian Mechanics every fall.
That's not exactly why I think we should get together and write "Bogdanov Theory for Undergraduates".  Bringing the whole topic to a truly general audience sounds, to me at least, just too hard.  However, I've gone over the papers (je peux lire la physique en français assez bien pour slogger comme ça) and the newsgroup discussion, and I think it would be possible to lay out the debate in terms that a well-versed physics undergraduate could follow.  I have some thoughts on how to do this, but I'd like to hear how many others are interested in doing something like this.
Should anyone attempt this, now or later, I believe it would be best to publish it elsewhere first, on a website, via Wikicities or even through a peer-reviewed journal which focuses upon education (Am. J. Phys?).  This last option would have the advantages of (a) padding all our CVs and (b) making it at least as credible as the original, a priori.  Then, too, in my judgment making a worthwhile exposition of the ideas used in the infamous papers—even just explaining what those crazy long words mean—would require a hefty amount of original research.  It should be released first elsewhere.
My own estimation is that, if this semi-popularization were done, the result would show that "Bogdanov Theory" is froth wrapped in poor writing.  (People have said this before, but the arguments are not all in one place.)  As the Pixies say, "Your head'll collapse if there's nothing in it."
Best, Anville 12:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summary for non-specialists 

message: In the section "Internet Discussions", the article says "...since Foucault's pendulum trajectory is accurately predicted by classical mechanics and even more precisely by General Relativity."  However, this doesn't make sense without the line from one of the papers that says, "cannot be explained satisfactorily in either classical or relativistic mechanics", which is not included in the article. silsor 23:55, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: feel free to make precisely the adjustment or inclusion that you are advocating since you're not a banned party (and clearly not a sock-puppet).  the worse that can happen is it gets reverted. r b-j 04:23, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Somebody delete a part by accident?

message: Sometimes it is actually very hard to judge the quality of scientific ideas. Despite what many people may think, science is not a black-and-white world, but it sports several shades of gray. For some evidence, read The Bogdanoff Affair or The Social Text Affair. Is the unknown researcher talking to us in broken English at a conference, and whose work we cannot understand, a genius (whatever that may mean) or somebody to dismiss with grace saying that "nature calls"? I fear that there are cases, admittedly probably not many, when the person talking to us does have groundbreaking ideas that look random to us just because they are not well explained or they are plainly too novel or non-standard. Think about it and try to accept new editors like me (see my first intervention under my name).
: Igor, your English usage immediately above was nearly flawless.  (nice try!)  i am not sure exactly what is meant by "random" or "intervention", but i think i can extrapolate.  but, of course, the real giveaway is that the appearance of  and , "out of the blue" that have precisely the same agenda that you've been currently pushing, defending themeselves as a "responsible scientist" (what science?  this isn't a 1950s Sci-Fi movie or Gilligan's Island with some generic "scientist" who happens to be an expert in practically anything), and offering little to identify themselves.  what happens if we Google either name?  will we find evidence of "responsible" science?  where do these guys work?
: the problem, Igor, is that you not only underestimate the intelligence of people here at WP, but you grossly underestimated the intelligence of the real physicists who have taken the time to examine and try to extract something meaningful out of your theses and publications.  (i can sorta understand where your confidence to pull this off was supported both by actually being award the Ph.D. and the publications, but once they really started looking into the writings, that was sorta the end to the charade.  you haven't accepted that fact, yet.)
: and you've destroyed your own credibility (whatever  might have been left) both by mispresenting yourself with sock puppets (while attempting an argument by use of the "appeal to authority" when that authority is none other than a sock puppet of yourself).  and the worst, most inexcusably dishonest behavior of all was the deliberate mistranslation of criticism into praise in the addendum to your book.  you have about as much credibility as Jan Hendrik Schön.  but, despite his misbehavior, i'll guess that Schön is actually far more proficient at physics, in general, than you.  yet they still yanked his Ph.D.  the problem for Schön is that he didn't already have a paying career and public persona (and books) to fall back on once he was exposed.  i wonder what the poor guy is doing now? r b-j 18:21, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sometimes it is hard to judge