Talk:Big Bang/Archive 9

message: I have put up an RfC, because I do not thing much progress will be made with the same four characters arguing in circles. Here are the major questions as I see them:
* Are there enough qualifications in the article? All the participants, to the best of my knowledge, agree that funding and academic positions in cosmology go almost exclusively to big bang proponents. We also seem to agree that there remains a minority of physicists, largely outside of academia, who are actively critical of the big bang.
:In its stable state, the article has a couple of sentences about opponents in the "Features, Issues and Problems" section which mention the opponents of the big bang, and their attitudes towards its more baroque features (inflation, dark matter, dark energy).
* Should we include relatively recent, controversial research results
:#such as the low-l multipole debate (A. de Oliveira-Costa, M. Tegmark, M. Zaldarriga and A. Hamilton, "The significance of the largest scale CMB fluctuations in WMAP", Phys. Rev. D69 (2004) 063516 arXiv:astro-ph/0307282. D. J. Schwarz, G. D. Starkman, D. Huterer and C. J. Copi, "Is the low-l microwave background cosmic?", Phys. Rev. Lett. 93 (2004) 221301 arXiv:astro-ph/0403353. A. Slosar and U. Seljak, "Assessing the effects of foregrounds and sky removal in WMAP", Phys. Rev. D70, 083002 (2004). astro-ph/0404567. C. J. Copi, D. Hueterer, D. J. Schwarz and G. D. Starkman, "On the large-angle anomalies of the microwave sky", arXiv:astro-ph/0508047.) None of the authors of these papers suggest they invalidate the big bang model, although some suggest that it is an unusual effect which may signal new physics. It has been suggested that we include them as a criticism.
:#Such as an (as-yet) not peer reviewed paper of Elerner, "Evidence for a Non-Expanding Universe: Surface Brightness Data From HUDF" arXiv:astro-ph/0509611 which is highly critical of the big bang (in particular, the theory of an expanding universe), but has appeared less than two months ago and has not undergone peer-review.
:#Such as the month-and-a-half old paper (R. Lieu, J. P. D. Mittaz and S.-N. Zhang "Detailed WMAP/X-ray comparison of 31 randomly selected nearby clusters of galaxies - incomplete Sunyaev-Zel'dovich silhouette" arXiv:astro-ph/0510160) which is also highly critical, has not been peer-reviewed, but is not written by contributors to Wikipedia.
:#What, if anything, should we say about recent discordant data (I think it is at roughly the two-standard deviation or one in twenty level) for the abundance of Lithium-7? arXiv:astro-ph/0501591
:In general, what should be reasonable criteria for including recent, controversial research results in an article about a theory such as the big bang, about which thousands of articles are published each year?
*Are the present sections on some of the unsolved problems of the big bang (inflation, dark matter, dark energy and especially baryon asymmetry) sufficient, or do criticisms need to be increased, or interspersed throughout the main text of the article?
*Did cosmologists predict the CMB from the big bang theory? Is the single world "qualitative" in the introduction adequate, or do we need to include the fact that they didn't predict the exact temperature? If so, where?
–Joke137 15:14, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The "controversial" nature of research is not a grounds for exclusion, especially if it is noted as such in some way. JDR 17:34, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It hasn't been excluded, but is reported in the article in a fair and balanced manner. Joshuaschroeder 17:38, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro 

message: ::::You have to give us some criteria for deciding which framerworks are scientific and which are not scientific. If Wikipedia is as neutral as you claim then the best we can do is report mainstream and outside the mainstream. That would necessitate inclusion of creationist nonsense as well. Just because you personally don't like a particular objection doesn't mean that your objection is encyclopedic. There is, of course, a difference between people who develop ideas out of religious zealotry and those who develop them out of grudges, history, or their own judgements, but I don't see how the former can be rightly called non-scientific while the latter is called scientific since neither is mainstream. While I think plasma cosmology is far less controversial than Humphreys' white hole cosmology, I don't see how we can claim that his criticisms are somehow less notable or less "scientific" than the criticisms of Lerner. Please let me know if you have another way of looking at this. Joshuaschroeder 17:47, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Joshua, don't try and attempt to confuse scientific competitors with non-scientific competitors. Wikipedia is to be neutral but to confuse the scientific with the non-scientific is not a NPOV! JDR 17:51, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps you'd like to provide a citation showing that the creationist cosmologies in question are "non-scientific" compared to the other cosmologies on the non-standard cosmologies page. --Joshuaschroeder 17:54, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Look at the fricken wikipedia article and alleave your ignorance! The creationism cosmology article states it (pseudoscience) .... shees! JDR 17:58, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: And if you look at the criticisms on the pseudoscience page you will find that this characterization doesn't necessarily mean that the idea is more-or-less scientific than any other idea. --Joshuaschroeder 18:01, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

text: WTF? How does "Pseudoscience is any body of knowledge, methodology, or practice that is erroneously regarded as scientific" not meant that it the characterization doesn't necessarily mean that the idea is more-or-less scientific than any other idea?!?!? You are confusing protoscience with pseudoscience I believe .... one is not scientific and one is ... I would hope you can tell the diference! Pointing to the other article and including the non-scientific with the scientific is to attempt to make some  guilt by association. Your note to the criticism section (eg., "The term "pseudoscience" removes the legitimacy afforded by the category "science"; leaving such a labeled body of theory to try to obtain legitimacy on other grounds") only reinforces the point that you believe (and are editing in a way to confuse readers) that the other scientific theories that go against the BB are "not true" science. JDR 19:34, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please read the criticism section of the pseudoscience page. The means by which someone evaluates whether something is a protoscience or a pseudoscience is nebulous at best and generally arbitrary at worst. There is no objective way to determine that one outside the mainstream view is a pseudoscience and another is a protoscience other than to appeal to idealizations and what is ultimately subjective criteria. -- Joshuaschroeder 23:02, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thread three 

message: I don't think so. Since helium is the element that is most affected by stellar nucleosynthesis, the agreement needs to be made with the lowest metallicity objects. Papers I've read dealing with the issue in this way find remarkable concordance with 4He. Where is the counterevidence? --Joshuaschroeder 18:01, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree. The point is that some papers give low estimates, and quote remarkably small errors which disagree with the concordance BBN value. The point is that these errors are statistical errors from measuring helium-4 abundance in different HII regions, and take no account of the systematic effects, which are estimated to be an order of magnitude or more larger. I agree that nobody is worried about it, particularly in comparison to lithium-7, but I included it for completeness. –Joke137 18:32, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My concern is that the article as it currently stands will lend people the impression that measurements of helium-4 cannot be made to be concordant with BBN when there are measurements that are considered by most in the field to be concordant. Joshuaschroeder 14:14, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Agreement poor for helium? 

message: If anyone looks at this discussion or the history page, it is clear that the problem is two individuals, Joshua and Joke, who do not actually know much about this subject, (although pretending to know a lot) and who dominate the revisions by having unlimited spare time on their hands. I have reverted to the scientifically correct version of this article. I suggest that, as Jossi says, we impose the “wisdom of crowds” and that anyone who respects scientific integrity just revert this article to my last reversion whenever they have time.Elerner 17:40, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh oh, there goes my credibility meter again. A quick review of the history page confirms the problem can't be "two individuals" because they have less active supporters like Pjacobi. Art LaPella 20:41, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Be warned that consistently coming to Wikipedia simply to revert without cause is considered edit warring and can result in blocking. --Joshuaschroeder 19:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The ignorance of Joshua and Joke according to Eric Lerner 

message: The scientific community has for the most part accepted the big bang theory.  It might be wrong but you will never gain any ground by editing an online encyclopedia in order to introduce alternate theories.  An analogy would be the special theory of relativity in 1905.  Einstein did not petition (or harass) the Encyclopedia Britannica to support his theory and qualify the articles on Newtonian mechanics.  He published  relativity and waited for the scientific community to embrace it based on experimental evidence and his theoretical arguments.  Whatever motivates one to use an open source encyclopedia to push a new theory -- convenience, impatience, or desperation -- these efforts will fail. JHG 08:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  What are you doing? 

message: I have decided to stop editing for the time being. Basically, I'm tired of arguing on the internet, and feel like there are more productive outlets for my energy. Have fun, and I hope you manage to resolve this mess. –Joke137 15:45, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  stop 

message: To at least attempt some comprehension about a different interpretation of the 'big bang' theory, see first the contri-bution which describes the origins of the African 'Kwaanza' holiday, and those which describe a mucousal oracle bead chronicle.
Among all the historical memory-perfect images preserved within the tiny oracle bead artifact which can be viewed, some show ancient volcano eruptions.  Various 'big bang' theories which must be intellectually attempted include introspection about the causes of each ancient volcano, as augmented with the aural effects of the tiny voice strip also struck within the mucousal bead chronicle.  The visual imagery is memory-perfect  --  meaning that it includes information showing both organic genotypes and phenotypes, and inorganic chemical compositions viewable as the contents of the oracle bead.
In other words, the tiny oracle bead seems to talk and emit other significant sounds as a consequence of its included voice strip  --  including 'big bang' effects.  11/25/2005  19:39, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Googling musousal oracle bead chronicle leads to many gems. Thanks for the laugh. --JPotter 22:55, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  different interpretation of the theory