->

"I mean, it seems to me that not only do Fabian et al. take “electromagnetism [as defined by Anaconda himself!] as one of the possibilities“, but it is the ONLY possibility!"

In a sense it is very one-dimensional and limited in its approach because it would seem electromagnetism, a Fundamental Force, is rejected from the outset, regardless of the scientific evidence observed & measured.

That’s not the right approach to Science.

The right approach is to be open to all the possibilities, including electromagnetism as one of the possibilities.

That was the original point of my first comment on this thread and has been my ongoing overarching point since I started commenting on this website.

Hmm … perhaps you'd be so kind to tell us all, Anaconda, in what way the following is a rejection of "electromagnetism" "from the outset"?

I mean, it seems to me that not only do Fabian et al. take "electromagnetism as one of the possibilities", but it is the ONLY possibility!

The object would in the past have appeared as a giant radio galaxy, but inverse Compton losses have downshifted the high energy electrons responsible for radio emission so what remains is X-ray IC emission produced by Lorentz factor [gamma, approx equal to] 1000 electrons scattering on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB).

Here you are: http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3117

I also provided a link in my comment on May 30th, 2009 at 1:43 pm, though I didn't make it clear that that is what it was!

Do you have a link to the paper? (I don't want to search on my own )

@ Hon. Salacious B. Crumb

Typical EU’er – always someone else’s work and nothing original.

The question is, if "we" (the non-EU'ers) aren't using someone else's work as well. It depends on what you mean.
If you mean with "original" really things one made oneself (researching, publishing, etc), then the majority of what we are talking about here is "not self-made". Me, e.g., am just at the beginning of a scientific "career" (hopefully it becomes something like this ). I have one published paper already (happy I am ) and I am beginning to work on my master's thesis. But everything we are talking about here is not made by me. I have heard about it, read about it and probably made some exercises about it – but the primary calculations have been done by others (Einstein, Planck, Heisenberg, etc.). So we are just "quoting" as well.
I don't know if this is the way you meant it – but it could be understood that way and hence used against you.

Credit to “The Onion”, Matthew Barnes 5-28-09.

Typical EU'er – always someone else's work and nothing original.

We investigate here the possibility that the double-lobed structure of the extended X-ray source is not then due to a surrounding merging cluster, as suggested by Bauer et al (2002), but instead to inverse Compton (IC) emission from a past outburst of the galaxy. The object would in the past have appeared as a giant radio galaxy, but inverse Compton losses have downshifted the high energy electrons responsible for radio emission so what remains is X-ray IC emission produced by Lorentz factor ? ? 1000 electrons scattering on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB).

That's pretty darn cool, isn't it!

I…I think it's finally over. Our reactionary emotional response seems to have stopped it dead in its tracks. If I'm right, all we have to do now is smugly reiterate our half-formed thesis and—oh, no! For the love of God, no! It's thoughtfully mulling things over!

Run! Run! It's making reasonable, fact-based arguments!

Quickly! Hide behind self-righteousness! The ad hominem rejoinders—ready the ad hominem rejoinders! Watch out! Dodge the issue at hand! Question its character and keep moving haphazardly from one flawed point to the next!

All together now! Put every bit of secondhand conjecture into it you've got!

Goddamn it, nothing's working! It's trapped us in our own unsubstantiated claims! We need to switch fundamentally unsound tactics. Hurry, throw up the straw man! Look, I think it's going for it. C'mon…c'mon…yes, it's going for it! Now hit it with the thing that one guy told us once while it's distracted by our ludicrous rationalizations!

Gah! It's calmly and evenhandedly deflecting everything we're throwing at it. Our deductive fallacies are only making it stronger! Wait…what on earth is it doing now? Oh, no, it has sources! My God, it's defending itself with ironclad sources! Someone stop the citing! Please, please stop the citing!

The language is impenetrable! For all that is good and holy, backpedal with all your might!

Where are the children? Someone overprotect the children! They cannot be exposed to this kind of illuminative reasoning. Their young, open minds are much too vulnerable to independent thought. We have to shield them behind our unshakeable intolerance for critical thinking.

What?!? Noooooooooo! Richard! For the love of God, it's convinced Richard!

No time for tears now. Richard's mind has been changed forever. But we mustn't let it weaken our resolve. Mark my words, our ignorance will hold, no matter the cost. Now, more than ever, we have to keep floundering ahead with blind faith in our increasingly fallacious worldview.

For Richard's sake.

What's that? Now it's making an appeal to reason? Never! Do you hear me, you eloquent, well-read behemoth? Never! We'll die before we recognize what we secretly know to be true! The cognitive dissonance only makes our denial stronger!

We have but one hope left: passive-aggressive slights disguised as impersonal discourse.† Okay, everyone, careful now…careful…if this is going to work, we have to arrogantly assume that it won't be smart enough to catch on to our attempt to salvage some feeling of superiority and—oh, God, it's calling us out! Quick, avoid eye contact and stammer an apology! Tell it we were just joking! Tell it we were joking!

Arrgh! Our pride! Oh, Lord, our pride! It burns!

All is lost. We don't stand a chance against its relentless onslaught of exhaustive research and immaculate rhetoric. We may as well lie down and—Christ, how it pains me to say it—admit that it's right. My friends, I would like to take these last few moments of stubborn close-mindedness to say that it's been an honor to dig myself into this hole with you.

Unless…wait, of course! Why didn't we think of it before? Volume! Sheer volume! It's so simple. Quickly now, we don't have much time! Don't let it get a word in edgewise! Derisively cut it off mid-sentence! Now, launch the sophomoric personal attacks! Louder, yes, that's it, louder! Be repetitive, juvenile, and obstinate! It's working! It's working!

We've done it! It's walking away and shaking its head in disgust! Huzzah! Finally—defeated with a single three-minute volley of irrelevant, off-topic shouting!

Ironic, really, isn't it?

Credit to "The Onion", Matthew Barnes 5-28-09.

Now that you've mentioned "disordered thinking", Wikipedia has an excellent description of…

Common Characteristics of Cranks:

* 1. Cranks overestimate their own knowledge and ability, and underestimate that of acknowledged experts.
* 2. Cranks insist that their alleged discoveries are urgently important.
* 3. Cranks rarely, if ever, acknowledge any error, no matter how trivial.
* 4. Cranks love to talk about their own beliefs, often in inappropriate social situations, but they tend to be bad listeners, and often appear to be uninterested in anyone else's experience or opinions.

Some cranks exhibit a lack of academic achievement, in which case they typically assert that academic training in the subject of their crank belief is not only unnecessary for discovering "the truth", but actively harmful because they believe it "poisons" the minds by teaching falsehoods. Others greatly exaggerate their personal achievements, and may insist that some alleged achievement in some entirely unrelated area of human endeavor implies that their cranky opinion should be taken seriously.

Some cranks claim vast knowledge of any relevant literature, while others claim that familiarity with previous work is entirely unnecessary; regardless, cranks inevitably reveal that whether or not they believe themselves to be knowledgeable concerning relevant matters of fact, mainstream opinion, or previous work, they are not in fact well-informed concerning the topic of their belief.

In addition, many cranks:
* 1. Seriously misunderstand the mainstream opinion to which they believe that they are objecting.
* 2. Stress that they have been working out their ideas for many decades, and claim that this fact alone entails that their belief cannot be dismissed as resting upon some simple error.
* 3. Compare themselves with Galileo or Copernicus, implying that the mere unpopularity of some belief is in itself evidence of plausibility.
* 4. Claim that their ideas are being suppressed by secret intelligence organizations, mainstream science, powerful business interests, or other groups which, they allege, are terrified by the possibility of their allegedly revolutionary insights becoming widely known.
* 5. Appear to regard themselves as persons of unique historical importance.

Cranks who contradict some mainstream opinion in some highly technical field, such as mathematics or physics, almost always:
* 1.Exhibit a marked lack of technical ability.
* 2. Misunderstand or fail to use standard notation and terminology.
* 3. Ignore fine distinctions which are essential to correctly understanding mainstream belief.

That is, cranks tend to ignore any previous insights which have been proven by experience to facilitate discussion and analysis of the topic of their cranky claims; indeed, they often assert that these innovations obscure rather than clarify the situation.

In addition, cranky scientific 'theories' do not in fact qualify as theories as this term is commonly understood within science. For example, crank 'theories' in physics typically fail to result in testable predictions, which makes them unfalsifiable and hence unscientific.

The term "crank" (or "krank") was once the favoured term for spectators at sporting events, a term later supplanted by "fans". By implication, the "cranks in the bleaching boards" think they know more about the sport than do its participants.

solrey: "Plus, for me personally, I have a broad range of interests and a diverse skillset that makes most peoples heads spin. All that keeps me pretty busy."

I mean wow! This is behind their drive that has them posting on UT the way they do.

The authoritarian personality type of the last sort of the most dangerous, for they often enter into the political arena, and are often marked by narrcisistic mental/personality disorders. Anaconda are comparatively harmless by comparison, but are in line with a rich tradition of people determined to patent perpetual motion machines or to show how their electromagnetic dumaflatchie device is an anti-gravity levitator. Such people to to their graves convinced they are the true unsung Galileo.

It is sad to see this, and it can often reflect a sort of disordered thinking, if not a psychiatric disorder of one sort or the other. About 25% of humanity is afflicted by these problems. It is worth noting that in the nadir days of the Bush administration his approval rating ran about 25% — he was down to his true believing authoritarian mindset core.

Lawrence B. Crowell

Lawrence B. Crowell

However, questions are always welcome (as long as they are pertinent!), and should be answered appropriately, considering both the questioner and the general readership as audience. For example, davesmith_au recently asked a very good question (and I hope I answered it satisfactorily).

That Anaconda is both ignorant and confused is very clear, wrt astronomy and physics (and maths, and …); but I suspect some of his confusions are not solely his own, so by addressing them a wider range of readers hopefully learns something too.

What puzzles me is where Anaconda's sense of certainty comes from; I mean, it must be clear even to him that he cannot realistically assess papers published in relevant peer-reviewed astronomy journals, yet he shows no hesitation in declaring whole swathes of such primary materials non-science or bad science. And when asked, politely, about the basis of his sweeping claims, he writes stuff about 'electromagnetism' and 'infinity' that is impenetrable gobbledygook (to me, at least).

Even more curious: Anaconda claims he is hewing closely to the true nature of science! Yet, to take just one example, when offered the opportunity to show how his ideas – expressed in comments on UT stories – are consistent with (classical) electromagnetism or plasma physics, he is silent.

What's going on?

The difficulties of detecting GW and the Hulse-Taylor-pulsar has been pointed out to him several times over the past months and yet he continues to try and discredit GR in this manner. This is no longer ignorance of the topic he’s talking about.

Ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of; willful ignorance is a different kettle of fish entirely.

Are you being disingenuous, Anaconda?

Cynically so?

I certainly appreciate that you have a very different view of the nature of science (astronomy, physics), and of the relationship between science and 'reality', Anaconda, but how GR predicts GWR, what LIGO's GWR detectability is, the observations of PSR 1913+16 (and other binary pulsars), etc, etc, etc are objective and independently verifiable.

But perhaps there's an entirely different explanation; your inputs, Anaconda?

No you don't, but Anaconda sure does!

Not responding properly to people with broken thought processes like Anaconda is why the world today is faced with the problems and scams of Anti-vaxxers, homeopathy, 'natural health' or 'herbal' remedies, psychics, chiropractors, acupuncturists, ID / Creationists, religion in general, and on and on.

If we can keep a few people from falling into Anaconda's Pit of Willful Ignorance ™, then there's a few less people that can be separated from their money, their health, and their freedom of thought by the above groups.

I understand your points. It's just that we and Anaconda/solrey/others have also become a vicious circle that probably should be broken.

Salacious, I don't need a lecture on what science is about, thanks

Sorry no, not exactly. We debate Anaconda so no one falls under his deluded spell.
Bottom line – science isn't wrong, nor is the evidence to support it. Anaconda is wrong because he uses fallacies based on unfounded or unknowing within his own mind.
Science is based on observation to confirm a reality based on evidence. Anaconda believes flaws in science's reality are based on deception, whose minor quiver of doubt means our built up knowledge is therefore totally wrong.
In the end, our scientific knowledge isn't perfect, but if we knew it all we would have nothing to learn. After all, if some god actually left us with the a capacity to think and reason to some logical conclusion. It is not faith based but draws on the observation we have of the world. Science is a ideological ridged methodology – total EU is a real hope and faith that an alternative view of the world just happens to be right. Let's not mince words.
Clearly from the emptiness and weaknesses of their non-existent proofs, especially towards their carte blanche broad assumptions offer, they offer no better views to explain the universe in which we live. Immediately this tells us something is wrong and there is an hidden agenda at hand.
EU should ADD to our knowledge and NOT replace it !
This is where Anoconda, etc. fail completely, and why no one with a scientific background believes them. Who really believes in false prophets anyway?

I understand the urge to correct Anaconda's misunderstanding of various scientific concepts and theories. It's a strong urge. An more so to those of you have a greater understanding of the science being discussed.

The difficulties of detecting GW and the Hulse-Taylor-pulsar has been pointed out to him several times over the past months and yet he continues to try and discredit GR in this manner. This is no longer ignorance of the topic he's talking about. It's just deliberate dishonesty. He needs to discredit GR in order to undermine black holes. But he only ends up showing his ignorance and bias.

Anaconda wants and needs an audience and to point out how wrong people are. To be honest, those of us who debate Anaconda seem to have a need to point out his errors as well. He will show up here at UT as long as long as his psychological needs are met.

Sincerely, a fellow gatekeeper of the faith … oops did I say that out loud?

In modern usage, sophism, sophist, and sophistry are derogatory terms, due the influence of many philosophers in the past (sophism and Platonism were enemy schools).

A sophism is taken as a specious argument used for deceiving someone. It might be crafted to seem logical while actually being wrong, or it might use difficult words and complicated sentences to intimidate the audience into agreeing, or it might appeal to the audience's prejudices and emotions rather than logic; i.e., raising doubts towards the one asserting, rather than his assertion. The goal of a sophism is often to make the audience believe the writer or speaker to be smarter than he or she actually is; e.g., accusing another of sophistry for using persuasion techniques. An argument Ad Hominem is an example of Sophistry.

A sophist is a user of sophisms; i.e., an insincere person trying to confuse or deceive people. A sophist tries to persuade the audience while paying little attention to whether his argument is logical and factual.

Sophistry means making heavy use of sophisms. The word may be applied to a particular text or speech riddled with sophisms.