Jeer Pressure: The Behavioral Effects of Observing Ridicule of Others Leslie M. Janes University of Western Ontario
James M. Olson
University of Western Ontario, jolson@julian.uwo.ca
Two experiments examined "jeer pressure," which is a hypothesized inhibiting effect of observing another person being ridiculed. Jeer pressure was expected to induce conformity to others? opinions; concern about failing or standing out; and conventional, uncreative thinking. In both experiments, participants observed videotapes containing either other-ridiculing humor, self-ridiculing humor, or nonridiculing or no humor. Participants then completed tasks that assessed conformity, fear of failure, and creativity. Results of both experiments showed that participants who viewed ridicule of others were more conforming and more afraid of failing than were those who viewed self-ridicule or no ridicule. Creativity was not influenced by the humor manipulation. Experiment 2 also included a lexical decision task to assess whether salience of potential rejection mediated the obtained behavioral effects. Salience of rejection mediated the effects of humor on fear of failure but not the effects of humor on conformity.
So, so sad. You guys are just utterly clueless to what is being argued. The worst part is that you care so much about ridiculing something that you know nothing about. There is absolutely *nothing* about the Electric Universe that has been "debunked".
Well-intentioned people can in fact cause great harm. So sad!
Wow, Nereid. That appears to be your first outright lie. The solar wind does indeed continue to accelerate even as it passes the planets. Ionic velocities for both hydrogen and oxygen at the Earth are around 2 million mph, whereas oxygen travels at around 1 million mph and hydrogen at half of that at the upper corona.
You can parse my statement until it no longer makes sense in individual parts, but why try to so hard to assert that we know what is happening with the Sun when in fact all that is happening is that one line of reasoning has been developed to explain our observations of it?
The point is that in the grand scheme of things, there are in fact alternative possible explanations for our observations which astrophysicists tend to ignore. They are complicit with ignoring these alternative explanations because math already exists for the conventional paradigms. But we need to take a step back and realize that the existence of mathematical models does not guarantee physicality for the simulations. The public has this misconception that astrophysicists have *ruled out* alternative explanations in an honest manner by completing a comprehensive review of all of the theories out there, and what one discovers over time is that in fact, that has not occurred in the slightest. And when a person brings up the possibility that the Sun's temperature is inverted because it is receiving its energy externally, all you get is ridicule and some fast and loose back-of-the-envelope calculations that ignore the filamentary nature of "flux tube" energy flows connected to the Sun. Ignoring the filamentary nature of plasmas in space will always lead to garbage calculations. If it's not *our* theory, then it's not *our* responsibility to prove or disprove it! Somehow, theories became like property, where people own them and protect them at the expense of others. We've allowed ourselves to become emotionally attached to them like pets.
A person that is knowledgeable about the big picture and honest with themselves will realize that the astrophysicists are not currently representing an objective search for the truth. They have allowed themselves to become representatives of the standard stellar model with all of its grand speculations and assumptions. We continue to make observations about stars all of the time that violate the standard stellar model. We've seen stars erratically jump all over the HR diagram, including FG Sagittae, V605 Aquilae and V4334 Sagittarii and V838 Monocerotis ("The Electric Sky" by Don Scott points to a total of seven counter-examples to predicted stellar evolution). In fact, we see unusual things with stars on a weekly basis, and this should rationally induce some self-doubt. And yet, it does not! Every enigmatic observation is just rolled into the standard model as quickly as it goes into the books, and at the expense of people actually proposing creative solutions that better explain *all* of our observations. The confidence in our interpretive skills is so great that we would rather postulate invisible matters that are 20x more plentiful than ordinary matter than conceive of the notion that our equations are somehow incorrect! And yet, there are laboratory plasma physicists who argue against things like magnetic reconnection as being redundant of exploding plasma double layers (Alfven included). It is wrong to completely ignore these people. We should foster a public debate on these issues and honestly assess who is right without preferences to either. Instead, what we get is millions of dollars pumped into magnetic reconnection with little to no consideration of exploding plasma double layers.
So, yeah, parsing criticism until it no longer makes sense is all fun and games. But the big picture is not so funny at all. We're betting the entire farm on one single theory, and it's not really doing all that great in a predictive sense. We've yet to see any decrease in the number of surprises in the sky, and space is just as mysterious as ever.
The confusion with the Sun's inverse temperature situation (the corona is around 100x hotter than the Sun's surface) follows naturally from the theory that the Sun has a thermonuclear core, which originated around the time that we discovered that it *could* be the mechanism responsible for the tremendous energies we observe. But beware because the issue is by no means completely settled. Any theory that attempts to explain the inverse temperature problem must also grapple with the fact that the solar wind continues to accelerate even as it passes the planets! There is no satisfying explanation for that one to date without consideration of an electric field, and the standard solar model miserably fails in explaining it. And this is no minor matter either because the solar wind, taken as a whole, constitutes the largest structure in our solar system, the heliospheric current sheet. Contemplate the implications of that for a moment: astrophysicists do not understand what is causing the motions of the largest structure in our own immediate neighborhood!
Within that context, any certainty about what the Sun is or how it operates has absolutely no basis in the facts that we know to date. An honest assessment that strips out all of the *assumptions* about the Sun that we've accumulated over the years will result in a much wider range of possible theories. The unfortunate fact is that the field of astrophysics currently only studies one such possibility out of the entire set. They have essentially worked their way into a corner, and we get theories like magnetic reconnection to explain the inverse temperature problem. But in the process, they completely ignore the work of many great scientists like Nikola Tesla, Kristian Birkeland, Hannes Alfven and Ralph Juergens.
Mark my word: we will hear more about Nikola Tesla as the years move forward. It appears that Tesla's experiments with impulse currents led him to accidentally discover how to intentionally create either a z- or a theta-pinch (which is the fundamental force for creating planets and stars within plasma-based cosmologies). Tesla discovered that the pinch created a stinging pressure wave that could penetrate both glass and copper Faraday cages! He then discovered that he could pulse-width modulate these explosions at thousands of times per second to eradicate the harmful human effects associated with the electrical explosions. It appears that Tesla essentially discovered a mechanism for longitudinal EM waves. He correctly noticed that the force of these waves tends to outpace the compression wave (the electrons). He had no idea how dramatically true this is though, and the information is largely lost to this day. But it is being slowly rediscovered.
If you have doubts about any of this, then I urge you to read the very compelling materials offered on the Thunderbolts Forum by user junglelord...
Once fans of Nikola Tesla wake up to the fact that his findings make total sense within the Electric Universe framework, all hell is going to break loose!
Hannes Alfven strongly advocated against magnetic reconnection and any theory of the corona's temperature that outright assumes that electricity is not involved. The idea that astrophysicists would attach his name to a theory that he vigorously fought against is a clear indication of peoples' lack of knowledge with regards to the history of science associated with his work. This has to be the ultimate form of scientific disrespect for what was in fact a very great man! Alfven started out as a power grid engineer! He studied electrical currents, people. Shame on Space.com for carrying this article and shame on the astrophysical community who persist in using his name to trumpet a cause for which he so vigorously fought against. And shame on everybody for just going along with the idea that Maxwell's Equations are meaningless in space. When you see a magnetic field, your first question should always be, "Where's the current?" To assume that it is not present even when you can see the magnetic field is just mind-boggling!
Are astrophysicists just unaware, or are they being malicious?
You don't deserve to be alerted to it, but you should check the January 2008 issue of Astronomy Magazine. Although I don't have a copy, there is apparently an article in there that asks the question if Jupiter is powered by a Z-Pinch. Perhaps you should write *them* a letter demanding the equations!
How many people must be talking about it before you decide to actually investigate it and contemplate it for yourself, Nereid?
So, in light of the dozens (hundreds?) of papers reporting 'magnetic reconnection' found in lab experiments, may we thus conclude that Alfvén's 'beautiful theory' has been 'slain'?
Actually, Michael Mozina has been performing an in-depth review of magnetic reconnection for the past couple of months, and he holds to his belief that there continues to be no laboratory demonstration of magnetic reconnection within any of these studies. He lays out his arguments and thinking in this regard in great detail on the Thunderbolts forums. I have no interest in re-posting the materials here or even going into any greater depth with you in the same manner that I find no logical reason to smash my head against a wall repeatedly.
Nereid, I will never commit to a formal discussion with you. That would be like throwing away days of my life, and I have nothing to prove to you whatsoever. You represent a dying paradigm and you don't realize it because you refuse to consider evidence unless it meets your own strict requirements. You will surely deny the possibility of things like anti-gravitation until somebody demonstrates it directly to you, and only then will you realize that your core philosophy of science is in fact nothing more than a herd mentality.
Sometimes the world is not so tidy as an astrophysical textbook. Sometimes we don't know the equations. Sometimes the equations are wrong. Mathematics is nothing more than a language for describing things. It is not a weapon that you should attempt to brand and strike down people you disagree with. Like all languages, we can write science fiction and fantasy with mathematics. It is the job of us humans to decide what mathematics is *physical* and what is a fairy tale, and we do this best when we're given options for what to believe. This is why it is my right and duty to explain to people an alternative perspective on the materials that you have been taught: because contrary to your own high esteem in yourself, you and other conventional thinkers are not infallible. Both James Maxwell and Michael Faraday clearly understood and espoused the role of being humble in science; it was a critical part of both of their core scientific philosophies.
Dialogue is incredibly important within science. Before there is a paradigm change, there are a bunch of people talking about alternative ways of thinking about observations in places where people are not criticized for saying something that violates the conventional thinking. You obstinately refuse to see that you have the order reversed and cling to the belief that there can be no paradigm change because you've decided that mathematics will be your ultimate litmus test. You appear to not realize that your frequent arguments for a lack of quantification are both circular and meaningless. It is nothing more than a statement of the obvious and for those of us who still get excited about science, a challenge to be taken up. It says absolutely nothing about what is physical or even interesting, and we humans are endowed (to varying capacities apparently) with the ability to understand what something is without having to mathematically model it. And, just for the record, something doesn't start "being" when it is mathematically modeled.
Perhaps you should redirect your demands to nature or some higher power to reveal itself better? The rest of us are going to continue sorting through the mess that you guys have left for us to clean up.
mean, we could have a discussion on his papers, in terms of how well he has applied plasma physics and tested hypotheses against the actual astronomical observations.... quantitatively!
What's amazing is that you have the cahones to argue anything about quantification. Your favored theories can only identify 4-5% of the universe. What good is a calculation with that sort of an error rate? Typically, people who only understand 4-5% of something are not so arrogant about their supposed knowledge. Most people would accept that they don't actually understand anything in that sort of a situation. Your refusal to be humble is a destructive force which only results in the silencing of rational discussion. I frequently wonder about your motives. Why do you care, Nereid? If you really think I'm so crazy, then why do you waste your time on me? If the ideas are so absurd, then shouldn't people see that for themselves? I'm arguing about facts, and you're constantly arguing against arguing about facts.
Nereid, you seem to think that I *really* care about responding to your interruptions. But you present nothing for my mind to chew on. You are little more than a pest to me, and I've unfortunately stopped actually caring what you write. If I respond to you, consider it your lucky day, and don't expect twice in one day (unless you finally decide to send something that contradicts the ideas I speak of). I will only respond to your "meat" -- never the wasted typing that you fill screens with. Your comments are generally so unimpressive that I'm quite sure that the people who discuss them with you see straight through them, and wish you would spend more time discussing the actual issues. You come off as somebody who believes that they are having an impact on something, but so long as interest in plasma-based cosmologies is increasing, your problem is actually growing. It's the rate of growth one way or another that ultimately matters. And being in the majority doesn't mean anything if grad students are flocking to the alternative theory; you've set course for becoming a relic. At some point in time, you will probably decide to actually pick up a copy of the "The Electric Sky" yourself. But, you will hold out as long as possible. The irony is that the decision to not be open-minded will ultimately make yourself obsolete. One day, you'll overhear two people talking about how various observations are interpreted for the two major cosmologies, and you won't even understand their conversation. You will have intentionally taken yourself out of the discussion, and over time, you will come to find that your static pool of knowledge is archaic and no longer commonly accepted. This is the inevitable result of allowing yourself to become fixated on any particular idea to the exclusion of all others. In the engineering world, things can change *very* fast. It seems like you've come to "appreciate" the slow rate at which things change within astrophysics, but your problem is that you've misinterpreted it to be a *natural* pace.
Within the Plasma Universe, we only believe things that are supported by observation; and if it has not been done in a lab, we will always remain somewhat dubious. We feel no need to conform to any consensus, and people do disagree on some of the basics. This is a healthy way to be. It keeps us on our toes, constantly searching out for a better explanation. Consensus is *great* for religion, but not so much for science.
It's not going to be so great for your career either in the long run.
1) 'the Plasma Universe' is NOT 'supported by IEEE! At least, not in the sense that you imply. In fact, I hear that this claim has caused some IEEE members to get quite upset, and they are now taking steps to stop this kind of nonsense.
Nereid, you're trying to convince people that IEEE acts as a single individual. That's absurd. Consensus is great for things like religion, but less so for things like science. We do a disservice to science when we act as though people can be voted off of the island like in a reality TV show. You unfortunately have to live with the fact that the IEEE does publish Wallace Thornhill's and Anthony Peratt's papers on occasion. I'm sorry that they do, but get over it already.
More people now visit the www.thunderbolts.info site than the BAUT Forum. As of December, the ratio of unique site visits was 2:1. And not only that, but check out how the stats break down further:
Not long ago I mentioned that in November our Quantcast figures showed a U.S. reach of over 35,000 "monthly uniques." That means over 35,000 individuals coming to Thunderbolts.info at least once in November.
A while back, before Bad Astronomy merged with the Universe Today forum, I had predicted that we would surpass their combined numbers. So on Friday I checked the Quantcast figures on BAUT. The monthly uniques figure is 25,169.
Then I found that the Thunderbolts figures are now in for December. Estimated monthly uniques: 68,151. Looks like 2008 may indeed by the year of critical mass.
Putting words in the mouths of the BAUT forum defenders, this simply means we're getting an army of uneducated folks to our site. But here's another interesting figure. Quantcast includes a chart on the education levels of the "head of household," a significant indicator considering that a large majority of our visitors are the head of a household. Quantcast includes three categories: no college, college, and graduate work. BAUT shows a significantly higher percentage with NO COLLEGE than Thunderbolts. And Thunderbolts beats BAUT in both COLLEGE and GRADUATE SCHOOL. For Thunderbolts, the largest percentage of visitors have graduate work, and the percentage is almost 25 percent higher than is the case for BAUT. Check it out for yourself: Quantcast.com
Times are changing. Grad students -- and many of them I'm quite sure are from IEEE -- appreciate the Plasma Universe because it is inherently testable, has had a great track record lately, and to be honest, because it is not fully quantified. It gives them something to do! But probably a lot of people just appreciate lab work over playing with equations. We guess how the universe could be with equations, but it's the lab work that let's us know that we're getting close.
Nereid, will you allow yourself to become an old cranky man like Sydney Chapman, who refused to look at Hannes Alfven's reconstruction of Birkeland's terrella? Your arguments about formalism never actually deal with what is being said. You never actually try on your own to give EU an honest chance because you never actually "touch the meat" of what's being argued -- and I believe that people see this more clearly in your statements than you realize. People realize that the loudest person in the room is not always saying the most interesting thing. Many people *want* a rational dialogue on forums like this and all you do is deprive them of that by countering *every* statement I make with attempts at making me look ridiculous. In the process, you leave the impression with people that it's just *me* who's arguing this stuff. But in fact, the facts are getting out loud and clear. This small group of scientists has doubled BAUT's traffic without a single press release or positive printed article on their behalf, and they're going up against the PR beast of the conventional theories. If you don't see the significance of this, then you are in complete denial.
Basing them on a very low-res image of something that looks like a cheap particle effect in a 3D game (at least at this resolution it does) is unlikely to provide any new insight.
Were the information as sparse as you suggest here, I would wholeheartedly agree with you. But what's happening is that there is an entirely new cosmology being constructed right before our eyes, and it works *very* well -- in fact, far better than the conventional theories are working. You wouldn't know it if you weren't paying attention -- and very few people on Slashdot in fact are.
If I can digress for a moment, I'd like to point out something somewhat subtle and very important for the Slashdot scene. There is a psychological phenomenon called "jeer pressure", and you can see it in action on the Slashdot forums whenever the subject of a plasma-based or electric universe comes up:
Jeer Pressure: The Behavioral Effects of Observing Ridicule of Others Leslie M. Janes University of Western Ontario
James M. Olson
University of Western Ontario, jolson@julian.uwo.ca
Two experiments examined "jeer pressure," which is a hypothesized inhibiting effect of observing another person being ridiculed. Jeer pressure was expected to induce conformity to others? opinions; concern about failing or standing out; and conventional, uncreative thinking. In both experiments, participants observed videotapes containing either other-ridiculing humor, self-ridiculing humor, or nonridiculing or no humor. Participants then completed tasks that assessed conformity, fear of failure, and creativity. Results of both experiments showed that participants who viewed ridicule of others were more conforming and more afraid of failing than were those who viewed self-ridicule or no ridicule. Creativity was not influenced by the humor manipulation. Experiment 2 also included a lexical decision task to assess whether salience of potential rejection mediated the obtained behavioral effects. Salience of rejection mediated the effects of humor on fear of failure but not the effects of humor on conformity.
What's happening is that every time that I try to educate people on Slashdot about what the Electric Universe states, people inevitably ridicule me. This ridicule is basically acting as a normalizing force that results in conformity on this board.
The Slashdot forums have been taken over by "bullies". These people have no problem with ridiculing things that they've actually read very little of. They believe that they can judge competing theories in about ten minutes of reading. What they are actually doing is reading far enough to learn what the theory's conclusions are, and basing their own willingness to read any further on whether or not they appreciate the conclusions.
The Plasma Universe theory, perspective or point of view -- whatever you want to call it -- is real, very alive, relatively rich in detail and history, and supported by multiple unrelated disciplines. It is a true synthesis of all of the natural sciences, but what it concludes is that plasmas in space are being mathematically modeled incorrectly. And this is where people tend to turn off. In plasma-based cosmologies, plasmas are electrodynamic entities that, like in the lab, respond with electrical resistance and luminosity to changes in their charge density. In conventional cosmologies, astrophysicists *assume* that plasmas are "perfect conductors", they *assume* that space is "quasi-neutral" -- that a given volume of space essentially has equal numbers of positive and negative charges -- and they *assume* that magnetic fields are "frozen-in place" within a plasma (as opp
Impossible to tell. Due to the image's low resolution I can't tell whether it's an a regular solar corona, a star sitting in a wispy gas cloud, a star sitting in a debris field, a star sitting behind a cloud/debris field, extremely large protuberances, giant lightning bolts... Heck, it could be a giant glowing amoeba.
That image looks like it was about 30x30 pixels before scaling. With that kind of resolution being able to tell that it's a star is about as far as we get.
It is a little bit hard to tell what it is. But that doesn't mean that we cannot ask the question. Most people on Slashdot have grown quite comfortable with ridiculing plasma-based cosmologies (even though plasma makes up 99.999% of the visible universe). This is a mistake. We should consider what that alternative theory says when we see enigmas like this hot planet next to this star. If we only apply skepticism towards against-the-mainstream ideas, then skepticism stops being a philosophy and instead becomes just a support for whatever is popular. If you guys spent more time learning about what the Electric Universe said, you'd see that there is nothing at all enigmatic about this hot planet within that framework. In fact, it is exactly what we would expect to see shortly after a planet has been birthed by a star. And I'd go one step further and even make the prediction that we will one day likely image in exquisite, undeniable detail a sequence of shots demonstrating that hot planets like this are in fact expelled from highly electrical stars like this one superficially appears to be.
I've been following the Slashdot crowd closely for almost two years on this issue, and I can offer a unique perspective on this: The Slashdot audience is going to eventually be quite humbled by their refusal to consider alternative cosmologies. Consensus is not the most effective tool for identifying truth within the natural sciences, where interpretations of observations are extremely important. The first step in identifying which cosmology is correct is to drop all assumptions and learn what the various competing cosmologies argue. The fact that the Electric Universe is basically an extension of laboratory plasma physics should induce people to pay more attention around these parts. But, people continue to ridicule the theory even as it gathers additional predictive successes (Check Thornhill's site for a summary of 2007: http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=66b0jzyh) and even though the Plasma Universe is supported by IEEE (the largest scientific institution on the planet), the Los Alamos National Laboratory and elements of NASA. LANL has an entire website devoted to Plasma Universe (http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/TheUniverse.html). IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science links to it from its main page (http://www.ieeetps.org/). More importantly, IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. has already devoted seven Special Issues to Plasma Universe, the latest one in August 2007. Here's the editorial:
The guest editors for that issue are: Dr. Peratt, a student of Alfven, a member of the Associate Directorate of LANL, a former Science Advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy, etc. etc.; and Dr. Eastman of NASA.
Turn your cosmology filter off for a few moments people. Temporarily drop all of the assumptions about what you're seeing here, and consider carefully what you are seeing in the article's image. Look at the star, and notice the structure of the infrared filaments -- the star's corona -- coming off of it.
It is a legitimate question to ask:
Doesn't this star look like a ball of lightning?
People may not be aware of the significance of this, but within the Plasma Universe perspective, planetary birthing is the result of a fissioning process that results from the star experiencing more electrical stress than it can handle. It responds by splitting into two objects in order to increase its surface area. If the electrical stress is only minor, you get a planet. If it's major, you get two stars. The expulsion will travel some distance away from its ejection point before settling into an orbit.
Within this other paradigm, there's a chance that if they continue watching this thing that they may observe it spit another one out right before their eyes in a bright flash.
To find out if this is happening, Terada and his colleagues targeted AE Aquarii with Suzaku in October 2005 and October 2006. The white dwarf resides in a binary system with a normal companion star. Gas from the star spirals toward the white dwarf and heats up, giving off a glow of low-energy (soft) X-rays. But Suzaku also detected sharp pulses of hard X-rays. After analyzing the data, the team realized that the hard X-ray pulses match the white dwarf's spin period of once every 33 seconds.
The hard X-ray pulsations are very similar to those of the pulsar in the center of the Crab Nebula. In both objects, the pulses appear to be radiated like a lighthouse beam, and a rotating magnetic field is thought to be controlling the beam. Astronomers think that the extremely powerful magnetic fields are trapping charged particles and then flinging them outward at near-light speed. When the particles interact with the magnetic field, they radiate X-rays.
You realize that terrestrial lightning releases x-rays too, right?
The high-resolution picture of the Crab Nebula above (upper), taken by the Very Large Telescope (VLT), shows the filamentation produced by magnetic fields and electric currents, as material races away from the nebula's core at half the speed of light--a "higher speed than expected from a free explosion", according to NASA reports. Acceleration of particles is a trademark of electrical activity, and no other force in space is known to achieve this feat.
In the lower photograph taken by the Chandra X-Ray Telescope, we see the internal dynamics of the Crab Nebula, revealing structure typical of the intensely energetic activity observed in decades of laboratory experiments with electrical discharge in plasma. That these dynamics are revealed by x-rays is significant because x-ray activity always accompanies high-energy electrical interactions. The internal polar configuration is of particular interest. A torus or wheel-like structure revolves around an axial column--presenting what some have called a "doughnut on a stick". Polar columns or jets are expected in intense plasma discharge.
In their discussion of the Crab Nebula, NASA spokesmen refer to "a scintillating halo, and an intense knot of emission dancing, sprite-like, above the pulsar's pole". Though gravitational theories never envisioned the polar "jets", "haloes", and "knots" of the Crab Nebula, we can now recognize these as prime examples of electrical forces in the universe.
This object is the homopolar motor. Let me quote "The Electric Sky" on what a homopolar motor is:
"The general shape of a rotating disk carrying electric currents in the shape shown in figure 49 defines what is called the 'homopolar motor'. In 1831 Michael Faraday was the first to use this mechanism as a way to generate an electric current by moving a conducting path through a magnetic field.
When electric current is supplied to the disk, instead of being withdrawn from it, a mechanical torque is produced. Thus Faraday's device can be either an electric motor or a generator of electric power. The homopolar motor is the main element in the electric company's watt-hour meter on our homes. Its shape has been called a 'disk on a stick' or a 'doughnut on a stick'.
Nereid, I considered forwarding your posting to Thornhill and the others, but you tend to go a bit too far in your proclamations about what is being stated.
So, pln2bz would have us accept that certain surface features on Io, Europa, AND Enceladus are *all* due (entirely?) to 'sputtering' or 'electric arcs', based solely (so it would seem) on certain qualitative similarities in the appearance of these features with some lab materials blasted with plasma guns^.
Nobody said anything like that, and I seriously doubt that such a statement could even possibly be defended -- which leads me to wonder about your intentions in even saying it.
However, despite the SD story having been up for over 10 days, he apparently did not bother to check the source, nor check whether Thornhill (or any other 'EU Theory' authority) commented on (or was even aware of) the apparent inconsistency; namely that the Keck results suggest the method of formation of the Enceladus features is not the same as the Io or Europa ones (for avoidance of doubt, the Keck results do not *prove* anything; such is the nature of modern science).
Why would finding differences in the amounts of sodium being excavated from each of the moons actually say anything about whether or not sputtering is happening? I don't see the logic.
What say you, pln2bz? Within the 'EU Theory' paradigm, is it legitimate to introduce evidence, concerning Enceladus' plumes in this case, beyond qualitative similarities in images? Especially when that (other) evidence is quantitative? When it is independent of the images?
Sure, but you're going to have to clarify why these findings matter for sputtering.
And if it is legitimate, how should that evidence be weighed? To what extent do the qualitative similarities trump the quantitative spectroscopic data? Or do 'EU Theorists' feel compelled to develop mathematical models of these hypothesised arcs and sputterings, to be used to test - quantitatively - how well many different sets of independent data can be accounted for (or, if you prefer, explained)?
The photograph above was taken by the Galileo probe from a position over the plume of the "volcano" Prometheus on Jupiter's moon Io, as it spewed material 100 kilometers (62 miles) into space. The NASA release in October, 2000 reported that the insets for this photograph "were acquired to search for and image the plume vent or vents. We expected to see a small crater surrounded by radial streaks, but no such central vent can be seen in these or other images. Instead, we see bright streaks along the margins of the lava".
In the electrical interpretation, the two bright spots in the highest resolution inset are cathode arcs seen diffusely through their jets, as they continue to encircle the darker area exposed by prior etching of the surface. The hot spots are exactly where the electric model, as proposed by Wallace Thornhill, had predicted. Finding no volcano, NASA scientists were left to speculate on how a "lava lake" could generate the observed plumes and jets many miles above the surface.
Over time, the fall of sulfur dioxide snow, resulting from the etching process, will cover the darker areas in the photograph. Electric theorists identify these regions as the burnt surface of the moon exposed beneath the "snow", noting that these dark areas continually move with the movement of the Prometheus plume. Since the Voyager observations in the late 1970s, Prometheus and the exposed regions have traveled more than 80 kilometers (50 miles)!
No doubt it was this discovery that inspired one plasma scientist to find
How did the Cassini spacecraft get designed (successfully)? With mathematics (among other things)
How did the Cassini mission control team get the spacecraft to Enceladus and know when to start collecting data? With mathematics
That's very poetic.
The problem is that spacecraft perform corrections (either manual or automatic) to their trajectories. Math isn't the only thing directing them.
But the bigger problem with your analysis here is that spacecraft are judged on the basis of whether or not they get to where they were directed and perform their function. We essentially buy (build) the spacecraft on the basis of our perception that it will perform as it is programmed. In other words, if a spacecraft fails, critics within the media lament the waste of money and the engineering team is presumably punished for it. On the other hand, when astrophysical theories fail to work, they are merely patched up and resold with the bandaids. As you've demonstrated, the critics are ignored or insulted. And since the theories are rarely, if ever, rejected, the people responsible for the faulty theories are never actually punished. If you believe in the methodology of the the engineering profession, as you suggest here, then you should understand the inherent value to critics. Real engineers enjoy being critiqued. They do not attack their critics.
It's very misleading to point to the successes of *technology* and suggest that for the same reasons, astrophysical theories are correct. If cellphones worked like astrophysical theories, we'd arguably still be using landlines. Engineers build things in laboratories. The math will help them to approximate a first iteration for the product, but it's the lab work that finishes the product and gets it out the door. None of our spacecraft would work without this essential lab work. And for the same reasons, we should look to the laboratory to validate that our mathematics are real.
How did Maxwell describe electricity and magnetism? With mathematics
That's very simplistic. Maxwell was *only* able to derive his equations because of the work of Faraday, who did most of the laboratory work that Maxwell required to build a reasonable physical model, AND WHO SUSTAINED OVERWHELMING CRITICISM FOR NOT QUANTIFYING HIS LABORATORY WORK. Faraday lived most of his life as an outcast for this reason even though he was right in the end! This is no minor point either because Maxwell was *only* successful because of the efficacy of his physical model, which Faraday helped to create. If his physical model had been wrong in some way, we wouldn't be using his equations today.
Nereid, there is no glory in being wrong. The history of science will only recognize you if you are right. This is why it's important that you *wonder* whether or not Thornhill is right. If you discount them on the basis of some superficial reasons, then you are valuing your own psychological desire to sound and feel right over the reality of who actually is right. You're struggling to find some sort of all-encompassing litmus test, and you've chosen mathematics and the peer review system as your guide. But the most difficult questions known to man are not as simple as that; human psychology plays a very starring role as well because we decide what questions to ask and what interpretations to propose.
This whole conversation reminds me a lot of Julian Jaynes' theory on the breakdown of the bicameral mind. You're just looking for something to obey. You're merely responding to instructions -- mainstream astrophysics -- rather than actually comparing and contrasting the two models. You're not emotionally removing yourself from the situation. You will find no truth in the universe in this manner. Real scientists do not love their theories or think that their equations are beautiful because they know that their preferences and prejudices have nothing to do with science. If Jul
Earlier, you acknowledged that, for you, the standard, mainstream science (plasma physics, space physics, etc) paradigm was NOT to be used to evaluate, test, or otherwise assess these non-science ideas. In fact, if I recall correctly, you explicitly stated that NO MATTER WHAT you might or might not read in any mainstream textbook or journal, you would find it unconvincing.
I think the absurdity of your statement here speaks for itself. I asked a very legitimate and reasonable question, and your response is to portray me as a mad man.
However, you did not bother to suggest just HOW anyone - other than the high priests of the 'EU Theory' religion - should (or could) test any of these ideas... what methods, what techniques, what tools to use?
And yet, you must realize that Thornhill can still be right that we're observing electrical terraforming, even if he doesn't present a single equation for it. Electrical terraforming is something that we can do, and that is done, within the laboratory with plasma guns; it exists in the real physical world regardless of whether or not Thornhill presents equations for it. To argue that it is not possible as an explanation without quantification ignores the fact that people point plasma guns in the laboratory at blocks of matter all of the time to see what happens, and that the results look qualitatively similar to what we're observing on both Io and Enceladus. It's called sputtering within the semiconductor industry, and it's used for laying down a thin film onto a chip.
I honestly do not know how to evaluate whether or not sputtering is what we're observing. My experience with plasma guns is very limited. But I do know enough to see that it is similar to what we're observing on those two planets, and you've yet to provide me with a single piece of information that would dissuade me.
Nor did you bother to explain how anyone - including yourself - could tell the difference between these non-science ideas
"Non-science ideas"? Were it not for sputtering, you'd not be typing on your computer right now.
and the hundreds of other non-science ideas promoted on various internet websites, from TVF's exploding planets, to Nancy's Planet X, to Cunningham's (non-terrestrial) landforms as evidence of interplanetary warfare, and beyond.
Um, yeah.
So, may I ask again?
Why should anyone pay any more attention to these EU ideas (about Enceladus) than those of hundreds of other non-science websites'?
Because sputtering is something that we do in the laboratory all of the time.
How - in specific detail - do you suggest a disinterested, unbiased outsider go about assessing the (non-science) claims from that website that you have chosen to copy above?
They could ask a plasma physicist who has experience in a lab what *they* think... I'm sure that Anthony Perratt, for instance, could tell you all about sputtering if he had the time.
Have *you* asked somebody who works with plasma guns what *they* think about Enceladus? Let me re-phrase that: Do you *know* anybody who works with plasma guns?
To be honest, based upon my own interactions with you, I'm not sure that I blame the EU Theorists for ignoring the peer review system. I'm beginning to suspect that perhaps the system is broken. I mean, you've hardly demonstrated a single ounce of respect for any of *them* in spite of the fact that their publications are completely logical. Peer review is no entity that is free of human malfeasance. If the rest of the astrophysicists are like you, then that says far more about you and them than Thornhill. In the grand scheme of science, scientists who allow themselves to become emotionally invested in the theories they work on inevitably risk making themselves irrelevant to the history of science. I do
Planetary scientists continue to perpetuate misunderstanding when they call the "Tiger Stripes" of Enceladus "cracks" that allow water to reach the surface. The channels are, in fact, precise analogs of those seen on Europa. Their frequent parallelism, their ridges or levees, and their ability to cut across all other channels in their paths stand as a definitive contradiction of the "fracturing" hypothesis. The pictures suggest something akin to a "claw" or router bit dragged across the surface in disregard for prior surface relief. That is a unique signature of an electric arc. In contrast, fracturing is invariably affected by a pre-existing surface channel or groove, as anyone who has ever worked with a glasscutter knows very well.
The puzzle of the "Tiger Stripes" parallelism can be simply explained by the phase-locked rotation of Enceladus about Saturn (it keeps the same face toward the gas giant), working in combination with the symmetrical, axially aligned magnetic field of Saturn. This unique alignment will naturally cause the magnetic field lines and their associated discharge currents to move in parallel to each other near the pole of Enceladus as it orbits Saturn. (Further constraints on the pattern may be due to a remnant intrinsic magnetic field in the south polar region).
As for the anomalous temperature readings in the region of jet activity, Thornhill suggests that the readings are way below what project scientists will find if they will measure the temperature at the focal point of a surface jet. Electric discharges become focused and hottest where they touch down on a surface. We are reminded that it was Thornhill who alone predicted that the plumes of the icy moon Io would be much hotter than NASA had ever contemplated. When the Galileo probe took a close look, the radiation overloaded the camera. NASA had not prepared for the surprise.
What I find peculiar about the situation though is that there is even so much controversy over the idea that these could be electrical arcs on Io and Enceladus. NASA already accepts that a burst of radio waves is associated with the material coming from Enceladus...
"We have linked the pulsing radio signal to a rotating magnetic signal. Once each rotation of Saturn's magnetic field, an asymmetry in the field triggers a burst of radio waves," said Dr. David Southwood, co-author, Imperial College London, and director of science at the European Space Agency. "We have then linked both signals to material that has come from Enceladus." http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=733
That you guys and NASA continue to act as if Thornhill "owns" the idea of electrical terra-forming is a waste of everybody's time. If you see a burst of radio waves coming from Enceladus, material being thrown off of it, carved channels across the surface and very hot point sources that move across the surface associated with the rilles, are mathematical quantifications really necessary for a plasma arc to be considered as a possible explanation? I mean, NASA's image of Enceladus' atmosphere clearly depicts "Holt Plasma Flow" heading from Saturn to Enceladus, and the website attributes the magnetic field bend to "electric currents generated by the interaction of atmospheric particles and the magnetosphere of Saturn". But they just can't make the short leap from electric
The extinction of the mammoths was in fact an extinction event that *included* the mammoths. It was a part of a large set of extinctions that involved numerous creatures. Postulating a solution for the mammoth portion of the extinction leaves many unanswered questions about the remaining extinctions.
Allegations that the mammoths were taken out by hunters flies in the face of the fact that numerous mammoth sites demonstrate that the mammoth bodies are oftentimes found torn to pieces and mixed in with all sorts of signs of catastrophe like gravel and bits of trees. The bits of mammoth that have been found include an inordinate amount of soft body tissues that have been preserved with their tusks and bones -- all of which should have degraded during the last warm period. Such preservation begs the question of why the Clovis would kill all of these mammoths only to leave the tissue in place? And even then, the tissue should have been scavenged and consumed or degraded by microorganisms if it was not quickly buried and frozen. A reasonable person would be curious about just how many mammoths have been found in this state, and curious about the details of the preservation itself. This is ultimately the question that you must answer for yourself. You guys are clearly not going to believe anything that I tell you, and I honestly don't have the time at this moment to pursue every single line of reasoning (it took Ginenthal hundreds of pages to lay out the evidence!).
It seems to me that at every opportunity to demonstrate objectivity, advocates of uniformitarianism have instead demonstrated a clear willingness to ignore the possibility of global catastrophe. It's a natural and even slightly proper methodology, if you ask me, to try to rule out non-catastrophic causes first. But, the mystery endures based upon the facts, and the end result by now is that no theories for global catastrophe have ever been rigorously pursued within conventional scientific circles to a sufficient extent that they can be legitimately ruled out. But, it's far worse than that. The evidence, when looked at as a whole, actually strongly supports the possibility of global catastrophe. The idea that people would call the Electric Universe Theorists ridiculous for considering the evidence (and mythological ramifications) which conventional scientists insist on ignoring is completely backwards. They should be commended for pursuing the anthropological ramifications to evidence that convincingly points to catastrophe.
The riddle of the mammoths inevitably says a lot about human psychology. Think about what the world would be like if it became accepted that a recent global catastrophe occurred that we did not know the cause of. How would people react to that? Now, ask yourself: Isn't it even slightly possible that people do not *want* to believe such things? Are the investigators researching these situations all such perfect scientists that they can remain perfectly impartial about such matters? When was the last time that you wanted to believe that there are forces out there that we do not yet fully understand that can kill us all in an instant for no good reason? Why would people ever willingly bring such fear into their lives unless they were absolutely certain of the mechanism by which it had occurred? We're seeing the same situation playing out right now with the global warming debate: Is it even ethical to argue for global catastrophe in the absence of a strong case for mechanism? In addition to the idea that what we see around us is all the result of gradual forces, there is also the possibility that it is the result of transient, highly violent forces. How would you know that it is not so considering that catastrophic theories are to this day rarely considered in scientific studies? What evidence ever actually ruled it out?
There are not necessarily clear answers to these questions, but I have my own thoughts on the matter. I personally do not find it coincidental that man placed himself as the cause
Did the mammoths all decide to try to eat clovis point spears for warmth right before they froze to death? Thus, they all have the appearance of having been killed by spear when they really froze?
From Haynes, Mammoths, Mastodons & Elephants, page 316:
"A sweeping conclusion that would indisputably pin the blame for probocidean extinction on Clovis hunters would be a literary triumph, but a scientific impossibility."
From Cynthia Irwin, Henry Irwin, George Agogino, "Wyoming Muck Tells of Battle: Ice Age Man vs. Mammoth," National Geographic, (June, 1962), pp 831-832:
"But seldom in history -- perhaps less than a dozen times -- had scientists excavated evidence of man and mammoth together in North America."
If you're going to suppose though that the Clovis killed off the mammoths with spearheads, you're going to have to presume that the mammoths bled to death because the chances of penetrating the 15 inches of wool, skin and fat and then striking a vital organ are virtually zero. You'd have more luck actually arguing that the mammoths were led over cliffs by fire (as evidence of fire does accompany some of the sites), but this argument is just as fruitless as you then have to explain how humans were also able to destroy the numerous other animals that went extinct *with* the mammoths, including mullosks, rodent-like creatures and ten species of North American birds! Then, the concept becomes an impossibility.
How do you go about determining what "its own terms" are, for "[e]ach piece of evidence"?
I made the point very clearly. You cannot evaluate mythology and ancient documents with mathematics. Either those stories and writings contain useful astronomical information or they do not. The only way to determine this is through a logical analysis of the stories and writings themselves, and by investigating the archaeological details of the last major extinction event.
I see your evidence. Now, let me show you mine. One of the huge, gaping problems that you specifically have -- and I believe that you are honestly unaware of the problem -- is that there is strong archaeological evidence that the mammoths were mostly killed off in a single, catastrophic instant freeze at the end of the last warm period, around 3,500 years ago. Any reasonably intelligent and objective person can pick up Ginenthal's book on the Mammoths and determine from the overwhelming evidence that it is so. We know this because huge quantities of the tusks have been perfectly preserved (well enough to sell on the ivory market) since their extinction, and tusks do not preserve like that unless they are instantly frozen, and then remain frozen. Tusks will normally turn yellow and then brown, just like bone, if exposed to the elements, and the numbers of tusks found in this state rule out the possibility that these are isolated incidents. We also know, contrary to unfortunate theories involving Clovis people, that the mammoths had to have lived in a warm environment. This is apparent for *many* good reasons, the most important of which relates to the fact that they required something on the order of 200 lbs of vegetative biomass per mammoth within the herd -- a staggering amount that could not be generated on ground that possesses any reasonable permafrost. Emphasizing the point is the fact that we observe entire forests (like the cedar forest in New Jersey) from this time period, the trees of which have all been literally broken off above ground. The only known force capable of doing this is a tsunami. In fact, vast stretches of permafrost in the Arctic region consist of bits of trees, gravel, bones, ivory and preserved mammoths. There is so much evidence to support the case of catastrophe that it takes Ginenthal 300 pages to recount all of it. The *only* data supporting the extinction of the mammoths at 10,000 years ago is the dating itself. *Everything* else -- the physical facts -- points to a far later date, and arguments that the extinction was related to the Clovis people's apparent Ice Age migration can be dismissed surprisingly easily.
Why does that matter? Because 3,500 years ago is within a reasonable range of human writings and story-telling. If *one* of the possible explanations for the extinction of the mammoths is a global catastrophe of some sort -- and the evidence certainly meets that weak argumentative goal -- then it is completely within reason to argue that ancient people wrote and told stories about that possible event. In fact, we'd expect in that scenario that these stories would actually play a prominent role in many cultures.
What I'm saying is that there is a trail of archaeological evidence that strongly suggests that we do indeed need to look to mythology and writings to determine what exactly happened. If people were there during that catastrophe, then what *was* the catastrophe? What did the survivors see? These are the legitimate questions that the public will eventually ask when they are properly told the evidence associated with the extinction of the mammoths. And the evidence will have to be evaluated, piece by piece, oftentimes without any assistance from mathematics whatsoever. This is what I mean when I say that the evidence must stand on its own. Our only recourse is to look closely at the evidence surrounding that last extinction event, and then to investigate the stories of mythology using techniques within the discipline of comparative
I'll ask again: dear pln2bz, would you please be so kind as to tell me how you determine/judge/evaluate/assess things to do with astronomy and space? In particular, what is the logically consistent paradigm within which you may be convinced of the utility, validity, truth (etc) of any well-formulated assertion?
Each piece of evidence demands that it be considered on its own terms because mathematics does not adequately describe all forms of evidence. You and others like you do not consider something worthy of investigating unless there exists mathematical models that can demonstrate it is so. But this is nonsensical. There are forms of evidence which can elevate an idea to a level of consideration as plausible, and for which mathematics really doesn't have a lot to say about. Your sole focus upon mathematics, for instance, precludes that much of anything of any cosmic relevance exists that was ever written down by ancient people. But in fact, there do exist some pretty good arguments that ancient people were exposed to a different environment than we are, and that it is this difference in surroundings that accounts for the fact that we consider those ancient stories to be so absurd. A person cannot judge this situation with any reliance upon mathematics, other than to demonstrate that the things that people saw can in fact be mathematically modeled (and that has been done). But to exclude forms of evidence that don't suit your needs for the sole reason that they cannot be explained in terms of mathematics is convenient for your own cosmology, which offers little compelling proof other than complex mathematics. Rather than deal with the writings of ancient people in a rigorous manner, you've basically just convinced yourself that you can adjust the rules of the game and exclude the possibility that ancient people were describing astronomical things. And more than that, you do this without actually looking at the weight of the evidence. A real philosopher of science would not preclude any evidence that could help them to understand their surroundings, which makes you more of a representative of your favored cosmology than any person who is on a mission to objectively discover his surroundings. There's nothing of value to be gained by constricting our set of evidence until it suits our needs. All cosmological evidences demand attention, and on their own terms.
What I meant was, given the hundreds (if not thousands) of (other) 'viewpoints' that have scientific merit that is similar to 'EU Theory', what method(s) do you suggest Joan Chardonnay and Joe Sixpack (or Dr Zhou and Herr Professor Georg) use to evaluate (test, assess, check,...) them?
Different cosmologies offer different sets of evidence, and they have to be evaluated on their own terms. To argue that mathematics is the *only* effective manner of identifying which cosmology is correct ignores the fact that mathematics can be easily designed to make up for our models' inability to mimic physical reality. If, for instance, we see a deficit of matter in the universe, we can easily delude ourselves into thinking that we've solved the problem by proposing mathematics to resolve the deficit even when the math has little physical basis. But, what we've in fact done is incorrectly convinced ourselves that the problem was just a mathematical one. In fact, part of the problem is also the act of creating a complete set of interpretations to draw from when attributing a cause to our observations.
In the end, there is nothing actually wrong with talking about the facts associated with the various observations, and the various interpretations that are supported by those facts. This is in fact what the Internet was designed to do: to foster a more free exchange of information than what existed prior. The problem that you appear to be having is that you're used to a more centralized forum where threads can be deleted if they are deemed to be heretical. This works great for some disciplines where there have been a great number of predictive successes and which are heaviliy influenced by laboratory work, but astrophysics doesn't really fit into that mold (95% of the universe's matter remains elusive for you guys). So, the idea that you should be actively silencing alternative views for interpretations is a bit out of line. I'm completely fine with modifying my language to reflect less certainty in a generic sense. But, your appeals to formalism within astrophysics (the idea that Thornhill should just write a paper documenting his prediction in greater depth) do not work as a mechanism for convincing me that he's wrong. It merely demonstrates that he has not jumped through the hoops that are expected of him by the larger group of scientists to make his point (which likely has some sort of historical details that I'm not yet aware of). It does not demonstrate that we should not even consider that electricity in space does things of importance.
Slashdot Mirror
DOI: 10.1177/0146167200266006
© 2000 Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
Jeer Pressure: The Behavioral Effects of Observing Ridicule of Others
Leslie M. Janes
University of Western Ontario
James M. Olson
University of Western Ontario, jolson@julian.uwo.ca
http://psp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/4/474
So, so sad. You guys are just utterly clueless to what is being argued. The worst part is that you care so much about ridiculing something that you know nothing about. There is absolutely *nothing* about the Electric Universe that has been "debunked".
Well-intentioned people can in fact cause great harm. So sad!
Wow, Nereid. That appears to be your first outright lie. The solar wind does indeed continue to accelerate even as it passes the planets. Ionic velocities for both hydrogen and oxygen at the Earth are around 2 million mph, whereas oxygen travels at around 1 million mph and hydrogen at half of that at the upper corona.
You can parse my statement until it no longer makes sense in individual parts, but why try to so hard to assert that we know what is happening with the Sun when in fact all that is happening is that one line of reasoning has been developed to explain our observations of it?
The point is that in the grand scheme of things, there are in fact alternative possible explanations for our observations which astrophysicists tend to ignore. They are complicit with ignoring these alternative explanations because math already exists for the conventional paradigms. But we need to take a step back and realize that the existence of mathematical models does not guarantee physicality for the simulations. The public has this misconception that astrophysicists have *ruled out* alternative explanations in an honest manner by completing a comprehensive review of all of the theories out there, and what one discovers over time is that in fact, that has not occurred in the slightest. And when a person brings up the possibility that the Sun's temperature is inverted because it is receiving its energy externally, all you get is ridicule and some fast and loose back-of-the-envelope calculations that ignore the filamentary nature of "flux tube" energy flows connected to the Sun. Ignoring the filamentary nature of plasmas in space will always lead to garbage calculations. If it's not *our* theory, then it's not *our* responsibility to prove or disprove it! Somehow, theories became like property, where people own them and protect them at the expense of others. We've allowed ourselves to become emotionally attached to them like pets.
A person that is knowledgeable about the big picture and honest with themselves will realize that the astrophysicists are not currently representing an objective search for the truth. They have allowed themselves to become representatives of the standard stellar model with all of its grand speculations and assumptions. We continue to make observations about stars all of the time that violate the standard stellar model. We've seen stars erratically jump all over the HR diagram, including FG Sagittae, V605 Aquilae and V4334 Sagittarii and V838 Monocerotis ("The Electric Sky" by Don Scott points to a total of seven counter-examples to predicted stellar evolution). In fact, we see unusual things with stars on a weekly basis, and this should rationally induce some self-doubt. And yet, it does not! Every enigmatic observation is just rolled into the standard model as quickly as it goes into the books, and at the expense of people actually proposing creative solutions that better explain *all* of our observations. The confidence in our interpretive skills is so great that we would rather postulate invisible matters that are 20x more plentiful than ordinary matter than conceive of the notion that our equations are somehow incorrect! And yet, there are laboratory plasma physicists who argue against things like magnetic reconnection as being redundant of exploding plasma double layers (Alfven included). It is wrong to completely ignore these people. We should foster a public debate on these issues and honestly assess who is right without preferences to either. Instead, what we get is millions of dollars pumped into magnetic reconnection with little to no consideration of exploding plasma double layers.
So, yeah, parsing criticism until it no longer makes sense is all fun and games. But the big picture is not so funny at all. We're betting the entire farm on one single theory, and it's not really doing all that great in a predictive sense. We've yet to see any decrease in the number of surprises in the sky, and space is just as mysterious as ever.
The confusion with the Sun's inverse temperature situation (the corona is around 100x hotter than the Sun's surface) follows naturally from the theory that the Sun has a thermonuclear core, which originated around the time that we discovered that it *could* be the mechanism responsible for the tremendous energies we observe. But beware because the issue is by no means completely settled. Any theory that attempts to explain the inverse temperature problem must also grapple with the fact that the solar wind continues to accelerate even as it passes the planets! There is no satisfying explanation for that one to date without consideration of an electric field, and the standard solar model miserably fails in explaining it. And this is no minor matter either because the solar wind, taken as a whole, constitutes the largest structure in our solar system, the heliospheric current sheet. Contemplate the implications of that for a moment: astrophysicists do not understand what is causing the motions of the largest structure in our own immediate neighborhood!
...
Within that context, any certainty about what the Sun is or how it operates has absolutely no basis in the facts that we know to date. An honest assessment that strips out all of the *assumptions* about the Sun that we've accumulated over the years will result in a much wider range of possible theories. The unfortunate fact is that the field of astrophysics currently only studies one such possibility out of the entire set. They have essentially worked their way into a corner, and we get theories like magnetic reconnection to explain the inverse temperature problem. But in the process, they completely ignore the work of many great scientists like Nikola Tesla, Kristian Birkeland, Hannes Alfven and Ralph Juergens.
Mark my word: we will hear more about Nikola Tesla as the years move forward. It appears that Tesla's experiments with impulse currents led him to accidentally discover how to intentionally create either a z- or a theta-pinch (which is the fundamental force for creating planets and stars within plasma-based cosmologies). Tesla discovered that the pinch created a stinging pressure wave that could penetrate both glass and copper Faraday cages! He then discovered that he could pulse-width modulate these explosions at thousands of times per second to eradicate the harmful human effects associated with the electrical explosions. It appears that Tesla essentially discovered a mechanism for longitudinal EM waves. He correctly noticed that the force of these waves tends to outpace the compression wave (the electrons). He had no idea how dramatically true this is though, and the information is largely lost to this day. But it is being slowly rediscovered.
If you have doubts about any of this, then I urge you to read the very compelling materials offered on the Thunderbolts Forum by user junglelord
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=933&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
Once fans of Nikola Tesla wake up to the fact that his findings make total sense within the Electric Universe framework, all hell is going to break loose!
Hannes Alfven strongly advocated against magnetic reconnection and any theory of the corona's temperature that outright assumes that electricity is not involved. The idea that astrophysicists would attach his name to a theory that he vigorously fought against is a clear indication of peoples' lack of knowledge with regards to the history of science associated with his work. This has to be the ultimate form of scientific disrespect for what was in fact a very great man! Alfven started out as a power grid engineer! He studied electrical currents, people. Shame on Space.com for carrying this article and shame on the astrophysical community who persist in using his name to trumpet a cause for which he so vigorously fought against. And shame on everybody for just going along with the idea that Maxwell's Equations are meaningless in space. When you see a magnetic field, your first question should always be, "Where's the current?" To assume that it is not present even when you can see the magnetic field is just mind-boggling!
Are astrophysicists just unaware, or are they being malicious?
Nereid --
You don't deserve to be alerted to it, but you should check the January 2008 issue of Astronomy Magazine. Although I don't have a copy, there is apparently an article in there that asks the question if Jupiter is powered by a Z-Pinch. Perhaps you should write *them* a letter demanding the equations!
How many people must be talking about it before you decide to actually investigate it and contemplate it for yourself, Nereid?
Actually, Michael Mozina has been performing an in-depth review of magnetic reconnection for the past couple of months, and he holds to his belief that there continues to be no laboratory demonstration of magnetic reconnection within any of these studies. He lays out his arguments and thinking in this regard in great detail on the Thunderbolts forums. I have no interest in re-posting the materials here or even going into any greater depth with you in the same manner that I find no logical reason to smash my head against a wall repeatedly.
Nereid, I will never commit to a formal discussion with you. That would be like throwing away days of my life, and I have nothing to prove to you whatsoever. You represent a dying paradigm and you don't realize it because you refuse to consider evidence unless it meets your own strict requirements. You will surely deny the possibility of things like anti-gravitation until somebody demonstrates it directly to you, and only then will you realize that your core philosophy of science is in fact nothing more than a herd mentality.
Sometimes the world is not so tidy as an astrophysical textbook. Sometimes we don't know the equations. Sometimes the equations are wrong. Mathematics is nothing more than a language for describing things. It is not a weapon that you should attempt to brand and strike down people you disagree with. Like all languages, we can write science fiction and fantasy with mathematics. It is the job of us humans to decide what mathematics is *physical* and what is a fairy tale, and we do this best when we're given options for what to believe. This is why it is my right and duty to explain to people an alternative perspective on the materials that you have been taught: because contrary to your own high esteem in yourself, you and other conventional thinkers are not infallible. Both James Maxwell and Michael Faraday clearly understood and espoused the role of being humble in science; it was a critical part of both of their core scientific philosophies.
Dialogue is incredibly important within science. Before there is a paradigm change, there are a bunch of people talking about alternative ways of thinking about observations in places where people are not criticized for saying something that violates the conventional thinking. You obstinately refuse to see that you have the order reversed and cling to the belief that there can be no paradigm change because you've decided that mathematics will be your ultimate litmus test. You appear to not realize that your frequent arguments for a lack of quantification are both circular and meaningless. It is nothing more than a statement of the obvious and for those of us who still get excited about science, a challenge to be taken up. It says absolutely nothing about what is physical or even interesting, and we humans are endowed (to varying capacities apparently) with the ability to understand what something is without having to mathematically model it. And, just for the record, something doesn't start "being" when it is mathematically modeled.
Perhaps you should redirect your demands to nature or some higher power to reveal itself better? The rest of us are going to continue sorting through the mess that you guys have left for us to clean up.
What's amazing is that you have the cahones to argue anything about quantification. Your favored theories can only identify 4-5% of the universe. What good is a calculation with that sort of an error rate? Typically, people who only understand 4-5% of something are not so arrogant about their supposed knowledge. Most people would accept that they don't actually understand anything in that sort of a situation. Your refusal to be humble is a destructive force which only results in the silencing of rational discussion. I frequently wonder about your motives. Why do you care, Nereid? If you really think I'm so crazy, then why do you waste your time on me? If the ideas are so absurd, then shouldn't people see that for themselves? I'm arguing about facts, and you're constantly arguing against arguing about facts.
Nereid, you seem to think that I *really* care about responding to your interruptions. But you present nothing for my mind to chew on. You are little more than a pest to me, and I've unfortunately stopped actually caring what you write. If I respond to you, consider it your lucky day, and don't expect twice in one day (unless you finally decide to send something that contradicts the ideas I speak of). I will only respond to your "meat" -- never the wasted typing that you fill screens with. Your comments are generally so unimpressive that I'm quite sure that the people who discuss them with you see straight through them, and wish you would spend more time discussing the actual issues. You come off as somebody who believes that they are having an impact on something, but so long as interest in plasma-based cosmologies is increasing, your problem is actually growing. It's the rate of growth one way or another that ultimately matters. And being in the majority doesn't mean anything if grad students are flocking to the alternative theory; you've set course for becoming a relic. At some point in time, you will probably decide to actually pick up a copy of the "The Electric Sky" yourself. But, you will hold out as long as possible. The irony is that the decision to not be open-minded will ultimately make yourself obsolete. One day, you'll overhear two people talking about how various observations are interpreted for the two major cosmologies, and you won't even understand their conversation. You will have intentionally taken yourself out of the discussion, and over time, you will come to find that your static pool of knowledge is archaic and no longer commonly accepted. This is the inevitable result of allowing yourself to become fixated on any particular idea to the exclusion of all others. In the engineering world, things can change *very* fast. It seems like you've come to "appreciate" the slow rate at which things change within astrophysics, but your problem is that you've misinterpreted it to be a *natural* pace.
Within the Plasma Universe, we only believe things that are supported by observation; and if it has not been done in a lab, we will always remain somewhat dubious. We feel no need to conform to any consensus, and people do disagree on some of the basics. This is a healthy way to be. It keeps us on our toes, constantly searching out for a better explanation. Consensus is *great* for religion, but not so much for science.
It's not going to be so great for your career either in the long run.
Nereid, you're trying to convince people that IEEE acts as a single individual. That's absurd. Consensus is great for things like religion, but less so for things like science. We do a disservice to science when we act as though people can be voted off of the island like in a reality TV show. You unfortunately have to live with the fact that the IEEE does publish Wallace Thornhill's and Anthony Peratt's papers on occasion. I'm sorry that they do, but get over it already.
More people now visit the www.thunderbolts.info site than the BAUT Forum. As of December, the ratio of unique site visits was 2:1. And not only that, but check out how the stats break down further:
Times are changing. Grad students -- and many of them I'm quite sure are from IEEE -- appreciate the Plasma Universe because it is inherently testable, has had a great track record lately, and to be honest, because it is not fully quantified. It gives them something to do! But probably a lot of people just appreciate lab work over playing with equations. We guess how the universe could be with equations, but it's the lab work that let's us know that we're getting close.
Nereid, will you allow yourself to become an old cranky man like Sydney Chapman, who refused to look at Hannes Alfven's reconstruction of Birkeland's terrella? Your arguments about formalism never actually deal with what is being said. You never actually try on your own to give EU an honest chance because you never actually "touch the meat" of what's being argued -- and I believe that people see this more clearly in your statements than you realize. People realize that the loudest person in the room is not always saying the most interesting thing. Many people *want* a rational dialogue on forums like this and all you do is deprive them of that by countering *every* statement I make with attempts at making me look ridiculous. In the process, you leave the impression with people that it's just *me* who's arguing this stuff. But in fact, the facts are getting out loud and clear. This small group of scientists has doubled BAUT's traffic without a single press release or positive printed article on their behalf, and they're going up against the PR beast of the conventional theories. If you don't see the significance of this, then you are in complete denial.
Were the information as sparse as you suggest here, I would wholeheartedly agree with you. But what's happening is that there is an entirely new cosmology being constructed right before our eyes, and it works *very* well -- in fact, far better than the conventional theories are working. You wouldn't know it if you weren't paying attention -- and very few people on Slashdot in fact are.
If I can digress for a moment, I'd like to point out something somewhat subtle and very important for the Slashdot scene. There is a psychological phenomenon called "jeer pressure", and you can see it in action on the Slashdot forums whenever the subject of a plasma-based or electric universe comes up:
What's happening is that every time that I try to educate people on Slashdot about what the Electric Universe states, people inevitably ridicule me. This ridicule is basically acting as a normalizing force that results in conformity on this board.
The Slashdot forums have been taken over by "bullies". These people have no problem with ridiculing things that they've actually read very little of. They believe that they can judge competing theories in about ten minutes of reading. What they are actually doing is reading far enough to learn what the theory's conclusions are, and basing their own willingness to read any further on whether or not they appreciate the conclusions.
The Plasma Universe theory, perspective or point of view -- whatever you want to call it -- is real, very alive, relatively rich in detail and history, and supported by multiple unrelated disciplines. It is a true synthesis of all of the natural sciences, but what it concludes is that plasmas in space are being mathematically modeled incorrectly. And this is where people tend to turn off. In plasma-based cosmologies, plasmas are electrodynamic entities that, like in the lab, respond with electrical resistance and luminosity to changes in their charge density. In conventional cosmologies, astrophysicists *assume* that plasmas are "perfect conductors", they *assume* that space is "quasi-neutral" -- that a given volume of space essentially has equal numbers of positive and negative charges -- and they *assume* that magnetic fields are "frozen-in place" within a plasma (as opp
It is a little bit hard to tell what it is. But that doesn't mean that we cannot ask the question. Most people on Slashdot have grown quite comfortable with ridiculing plasma-based cosmologies (even though plasma makes up 99.999% of the visible universe). This is a mistake. We should consider what that alternative theory says when we see enigmas like this hot planet next to this star. If we only apply skepticism towards against-the-mainstream ideas, then skepticism stops being a philosophy and instead becomes just a support for whatever is popular. If you guys spent more time learning about what the Electric Universe said, you'd see that there is nothing at all enigmatic about this hot planet within that framework. In fact, it is exactly what we would expect to see shortly after a planet has been birthed by a star. And I'd go one step further and even make the prediction that we will one day likely image in exquisite, undeniable detail a sequence of shots demonstrating that hot planets like this are in fact expelled from highly electrical stars like this one superficially appears to be.
I've been following the Slashdot crowd closely for almost two years on this issue, and I can offer a unique perspective on this: The Slashdot audience is going to eventually be quite humbled by their refusal to consider alternative cosmologies. Consensus is not the most effective tool for identifying truth within the natural sciences, where interpretations of observations are extremely important. The first step in identifying which cosmology is correct is to drop all assumptions and learn what the various competing cosmologies argue. The fact that the Electric Universe is basically an extension of laboratory plasma physics should induce people to pay more attention around these parts. But, people continue to ridicule the theory even as it gathers additional predictive successes (Check Thornhill's site for a summary of 2007: http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=66b0jzyh) and even though the Plasma Universe is supported by IEEE (the largest scientific institution on the planet), the Los Alamos National Laboratory and elements of NASA. LANL has an entire website devoted to Plasma Universe (http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/TheUniverse.html). IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science links to it from its main page (http://www.ieeetps.org/). More importantly, IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci.
has already devoted seven Special Issues to Plasma Universe, the latest one in August 2007. Here's the editorial:
http://plasmascience.net/tpu/downloads/Editorial-IEEETPSAug07-CosmicPlasma.pdf
The guest editors for that issue are: Dr. Peratt, a student of Alfven, a member of the Associate Directorate of LANL, a former Science Advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy, etc. etc.; and Dr. Eastman of NASA.
Turn your cosmology filter off for a few moments people. Temporarily drop all of the assumptions about what you're seeing here, and consider carefully what you are seeing in the article's image. Look at the star, and notice the structure of the infrared filaments -- the star's corona -- coming off of it.
It is a legitimate question to ask:
Doesn't this star look like a ball of lightning?
People may not be aware of the significance of this, but within the Plasma Universe perspective, planetary birthing is the result of a fissioning process that results from the star experiencing more electrical stress than it can handle. It responds by splitting into two objects in order to increase its surface area. If the electrical stress is only minor, you get a planet. If it's major, you get two stars. The expulsion will travel some distance away from its ejection point before settling into an orbit.
Within this other paradigm, there's a chance that if they continue watching this thing that they may observe it spit another one out right before their eyes in a bright flash.
I'm going to go off-topic here. I need to show you something
I'm curious what you think of the recent finding that white dwarfs can "act like a pulsar". From http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/White_Dwarf_Pulses_Like_A_Pulsar_999.html
You realize that terrestrial lightning releases x-rays too, right?
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That article points to similarities in x-ray emissions to the Crab Nebula, which flickers at 30 times per second. From http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/040916nebula.htm
This object is the homopolar motor. Let me quote "The Electric Sky" on what a homopolar motor is:
Nobody said anything like that, and I seriously doubt that such a statement could even possibly be defended -- which leads me to wonder about your intentions in even saying it.
Why would finding differences in the amounts of sodium being excavated from each of the moons actually say anything about whether or not sputtering is happening? I don't see the logic.
Sure, but you're going to have to clarify why these findings matter for sputtering.
Now that we're talking about Io and Europa, you might also try explaining why we see no volcano where Prometheus should be located on Io. From http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/041216io-series-3.htm:
That's very poetic.
The problem is that spacecraft perform corrections (either manual or automatic) to their trajectories. Math isn't the only thing directing them.
But the bigger problem with your analysis here is that spacecraft are judged on the basis of whether or not they get to where they were directed and perform their function. We essentially buy (build) the spacecraft on the basis of our perception that it will perform as it is programmed. In other words, if a spacecraft fails, critics within the media lament the waste of money and the engineering team is presumably punished for it. On the other hand, when astrophysical theories fail to work, they are merely patched up and resold with the bandaids. As you've demonstrated, the critics are ignored or insulted. And since the theories are rarely, if ever, rejected, the people responsible for the faulty theories are never actually punished. If you believe in the methodology of the the engineering profession, as you suggest here, then you should understand the inherent value to critics. Real engineers enjoy being critiqued. They do not attack their critics.
It's very misleading to point to the successes of *technology* and suggest that for the same reasons, astrophysical theories are correct. If cellphones worked like astrophysical theories, we'd arguably still be using landlines. Engineers build things in laboratories. The math will help them to approximate a first iteration for the product, but it's the lab work that finishes the product and gets it out the door. None of our spacecraft would work without this essential lab work. And for the same reasons, we should look to the laboratory to validate that our mathematics are real.
That's very simplistic. Maxwell was *only* able to derive his equations because of the work of Faraday, who did most of the laboratory work that Maxwell required to build a reasonable physical model, AND WHO SUSTAINED OVERWHELMING CRITICISM FOR NOT QUANTIFYING HIS LABORATORY WORK. Faraday lived most of his life as an outcast for this reason even though he was right in the end! This is no minor point either because Maxwell was *only* successful because of the efficacy of his physical model, which Faraday helped to create. If his physical model had been wrong in some way, we wouldn't be using his equations today.
Nereid, there is no glory in being wrong. The history of science will only recognize you if you are right. This is why it's important that you *wonder* whether or not Thornhill is right. If you discount them on the basis of some superficial reasons, then you are valuing your own psychological desire to sound and feel right over the reality of who actually is right. You're struggling to find some sort of all-encompassing litmus test, and you've chosen mathematics and the peer review system as your guide. But the most difficult questions known to man are not as simple as that; human psychology plays a very starring role as well because we decide what questions to ask and what interpretations to propose.
This whole conversation reminds me a lot of Julian Jaynes' theory on the breakdown of the bicameral mind. You're just looking for something to obey. You're merely responding to instructions -- mainstream astrophysics -- rather than actually comparing and contrasting the two models. You're not emotionally removing yourself from the situation. You will find no truth in the universe in this manner. Real scientists do not love their theories or think that their equations are beautiful because they know that their preferences and prejudices have nothing to do with science. If Jul
I think the absurdity of your statement here speaks for itself. I asked a very legitimate and reasonable question, and your response is to portray me as a mad man.
And yet, you must realize that Thornhill can still be right that we're observing electrical terraforming, even if he doesn't present a single equation for it. Electrical terraforming is something that we can do, and that is done, within the laboratory with plasma guns; it exists in the real physical world regardless of whether or not Thornhill presents equations for it. To argue that it is not possible as an explanation without quantification ignores the fact that people point plasma guns in the laboratory at blocks of matter all of the time to see what happens, and that the results look qualitatively similar to what we're observing on both Io and Enceladus. It's called sputtering within the semiconductor industry, and it's used for laying down a thin film onto a chip.
I honestly do not know how to evaluate whether or not sputtering is what we're observing. My experience with plasma guns is very limited. But I do know enough to see that it is similar to what we're observing on those two planets, and you've yet to provide me with a single piece of information that would dissuade me.
"Non-science ideas"? Were it not for sputtering, you'd not be typing on your computer right now.
Um, yeah.
Because sputtering is something that we do in the laboratory all of the time.
They could ask a plasma physicist who has experience in a lab what *they* think ... I'm sure that Anthony Perratt, for instance, could tell you all about sputtering if he had the time.
Have *you* asked somebody who works with plasma guns what *they* think about Enceladus? Let me re-phrase that: Do you *know* anybody who works with plasma guns?
To be honest, based upon my own interactions with you, I'm not sure that I blame the EU Theorists for ignoring the peer review system. I'm beginning to suspect that perhaps the system is broken. I mean, you've hardly demonstrated a single ounce of respect for any of *them* in spite of the fact that their publications are completely logical. Peer review is no entity that is free of human malfeasance. If the rest of the astrophysicists are like you, then that says far more about you and them than Thornhill. In the grand scheme of science, scientists who allow themselves to become emotionally invested in the theories they work on inevitably risk making themselves irrelevant to the history of science. I do
For background information on how anomalously high temperatures of electrical arcs were handled in the Io mission, check out http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/041217io-series-4.htm.
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What I find peculiar about the situation though is that there is even so much controversy over the idea that these could be electrical arcs on Io and Enceladus. NASA already accepts that a burst of radio waves is associated with the material coming from Enceladus
That you guys and NASA continue to act as if Thornhill "owns" the idea of electrical terra-forming is a waste of everybody's time. If you see a burst of radio waves coming from Enceladus, material being thrown off of it, carved channels across the surface and very hot point sources that move across the surface associated with the rilles, are mathematical quantifications really necessary for a plasma arc to be considered as a possible explanation? I mean, NASA's image of Enceladus' atmosphere clearly depicts "Holt Plasma Flow" heading from Saturn to Enceladus, and the website attributes the magnetic field bend to "electric currents generated by the interaction of atmospheric particles and the magnetosphere of Saturn". But they just can't make the short leap from electric
The extinction of the mammoths was in fact an extinction event that *included* the mammoths. It was a part of a large set of extinctions that involved numerous creatures. Postulating a solution for the mammoth portion of the extinction leaves many unanswered questions about the remaining extinctions.
Allegations that the mammoths were taken out by hunters flies in the face of the fact that numerous mammoth sites demonstrate that the mammoth bodies are oftentimes found torn to pieces and mixed in with all sorts of signs of catastrophe like gravel and bits of trees. The bits of mammoth that have been found include an inordinate amount of soft body tissues that have been preserved with their tusks and bones -- all of which should have degraded during the last warm period. Such preservation begs the question of why the Clovis would kill all of these mammoths only to leave the tissue in place? And even then, the tissue should have been scavenged and consumed or degraded by microorganisms if it was not quickly buried and frozen. A reasonable person would be curious about just how many mammoths have been found in this state, and curious about the details of the preservation itself. This is ultimately the question that you must answer for yourself. You guys are clearly not going to believe anything that I tell you, and I honestly don't have the time at this moment to pursue every single line of reasoning (it took Ginenthal hundreds of pages to lay out the evidence!).
It seems to me that at every opportunity to demonstrate objectivity, advocates of uniformitarianism have instead demonstrated a clear willingness to ignore the possibility of global catastrophe. It's a natural and even slightly proper methodology, if you ask me, to try to rule out non-catastrophic causes first. But, the mystery endures based upon the facts, and the end result by now is that no theories for global catastrophe have ever been rigorously pursued within conventional scientific circles to a sufficient extent that they can be legitimately ruled out. But, it's far worse than that. The evidence, when looked at as a whole, actually strongly supports the possibility of global catastrophe. The idea that people would call the Electric Universe Theorists ridiculous for considering the evidence (and mythological ramifications) which conventional scientists insist on ignoring is completely backwards. They should be commended for pursuing the anthropological ramifications to evidence that convincingly points to catastrophe.
The riddle of the mammoths inevitably says a lot about human psychology. Think about what the world would be like if it became accepted that a recent global catastrophe occurred that we did not know the cause of. How would people react to that? Now, ask yourself: Isn't it even slightly possible that people do not *want* to believe such things? Are the investigators researching these situations all such perfect scientists that they can remain perfectly impartial about such matters? When was the last time that you wanted to believe that there are forces out there that we do not yet fully understand that can kill us all in an instant for no good reason? Why would people ever willingly bring such fear into their lives unless they were absolutely certain of the mechanism by which it had occurred? We're seeing the same situation playing out right now with the global warming debate: Is it even ethical to argue for global catastrophe in the absence of a strong case for mechanism? In addition to the idea that what we see around us is all the result of gradual forces, there is also the possibility that it is the result of transient, highly violent forces. How would you know that it is not so considering that catastrophic theories are to this day rarely considered in scientific studies? What evidence ever actually ruled it out?
There are not necessarily clear answers to these questions, but I have my own thoughts on the matter. I personally do not find it coincidental that man placed himself as the cause
From Haynes, Mammoths, Mastodons & Elephants, page 316:
From Cynthia Irwin, Henry Irwin, George Agogino, "Wyoming Muck Tells of Battle: Ice Age Man vs. Mammoth," National Geographic, (June, 1962), pp 831-832:
If you're going to suppose though that the Clovis killed off the mammoths with spearheads, you're going to have to presume that the mammoths bled to death because the chances of penetrating the 15 inches of wool, skin and fat and then striking a vital organ are virtually zero. You'd have more luck actually arguing that the mammoths were led over cliffs by fire (as evidence of fire does accompany some of the sites), but this argument is just as fruitless as you then have to explain how humans were also able to destroy the numerous other animals that went extinct *with* the mammoths, including mullosks, rodent-like creatures and ten species of North American birds! Then, the concept becomes an impossibility.
I made the point very clearly. You cannot evaluate mythology and ancient documents with mathematics. Either those stories and writings contain useful astronomical information or they do not. The only way to determine this is through a logical analysis of the stories and writings themselves, and by investigating the archaeological details of the last major extinction event.
I see your evidence. Now, let me show you mine. One of the huge, gaping problems that you specifically have -- and I believe that you are honestly unaware of the problem -- is that there is strong archaeological evidence that the mammoths were mostly killed off in a single, catastrophic instant freeze at the end of the last warm period, around 3,500 years ago. Any reasonably intelligent and objective person can pick up Ginenthal's book on the Mammoths and determine from the overwhelming evidence that it is so. We know this because huge quantities of the tusks have been perfectly preserved (well enough to sell on the ivory market) since their extinction, and tusks do not preserve like that unless they are instantly frozen, and then remain frozen. Tusks will normally turn yellow and then brown, just like bone, if exposed to the elements, and the numbers of tusks found in this state rule out the possibility that these are isolated incidents. We also know, contrary to unfortunate theories involving Clovis people, that the mammoths had to have lived in a warm environment. This is apparent for *many* good reasons, the most important of which relates to the fact that they required something on the order of 200 lbs of vegetative biomass per mammoth within the herd -- a staggering amount that could not be generated on ground that possesses any reasonable permafrost. Emphasizing the point is the fact that we observe entire forests (like the cedar forest in New Jersey) from this time period, the trees of which have all been literally broken off above ground. The only known force capable of doing this is a tsunami. In fact, vast stretches of permafrost in the Arctic region consist of bits of trees, gravel, bones, ivory and preserved mammoths. There is so much evidence to support the case of catastrophe that it takes Ginenthal 300 pages to recount all of it. The *only* data supporting the extinction of the mammoths at 10,000 years ago is the dating itself. *Everything* else -- the physical facts -- points to a far later date, and arguments that the extinction was related to the Clovis people's apparent Ice Age migration can be dismissed surprisingly easily.
Why does that matter? Because 3,500 years ago is within a reasonable range of human writings and story-telling. If *one* of the possible explanations for the extinction of the mammoths is a global catastrophe of some sort -- and the evidence certainly meets that weak argumentative goal -- then it is completely within reason to argue that ancient people wrote and told stories about that possible event. In fact, we'd expect in that scenario that these stories would actually play a prominent role in many cultures.
What I'm saying is that there is a trail of archaeological evidence that strongly suggests that we do indeed need to look to mythology and writings to determine what exactly happened. If people were there during that catastrophe, then what *was* the catastrophe? What did the survivors see? These are the legitimate questions that the public will eventually ask when they are properly told the evidence associated with the extinction of the mammoths. And the evidence will have to be evaluated, piece by piece, oftentimes without any assistance from mathematics whatsoever. This is what I mean when I say that the evidence must stand on its own. Our only recourse is to look closely at the evidence surrounding that last extinction event, and then to investigate the stories of mythology using techniques within the discipline of comparative
Each piece of evidence demands that it be considered on its own terms because mathematics does not adequately describe all forms of evidence. You and others like you do not consider something worthy of investigating unless there exists mathematical models that can demonstrate it is so. But this is nonsensical. There are forms of evidence which can elevate an idea to a level of consideration as plausible, and for which mathematics really doesn't have a lot to say about. Your sole focus upon mathematics, for instance, precludes that much of anything of any cosmic relevance exists that was ever written down by ancient people. But in fact, there do exist some pretty good arguments that ancient people were exposed to a different environment than we are, and that it is this difference in surroundings that accounts for the fact that we consider those ancient stories to be so absurd. A person cannot judge this situation with any reliance upon mathematics, other than to demonstrate that the things that people saw can in fact be mathematically modeled (and that has been done). But to exclude forms of evidence that don't suit your needs for the sole reason that they cannot be explained in terms of mathematics is convenient for your own cosmology, which offers little compelling proof other than complex mathematics. Rather than deal with the writings of ancient people in a rigorous manner, you've basically just convinced yourself that you can adjust the rules of the game and exclude the possibility that ancient people were describing astronomical things. And more than that, you do this without actually looking at the weight of the evidence. A real philosopher of science would not preclude any evidence that could help them to understand their surroundings, which makes you more of a representative of your favored cosmology than any person who is on a mission to objectively discover his surroundings. There's nothing of value to be gained by constricting our set of evidence until it suits our needs. All cosmological evidences demand attention, and on their own terms.
Different cosmologies offer different sets of evidence, and they have to be evaluated on their own terms. To argue that mathematics is the *only* effective manner of identifying which cosmology is correct ignores the fact that mathematics can be easily designed to make up for our models' inability to mimic physical reality. If, for instance, we see a deficit of matter in the universe, we can easily delude ourselves into thinking that we've solved the problem by proposing mathematics to resolve the deficit even when the math has little physical basis. But, what we've in fact done is incorrectly convinced ourselves that the problem was just a mathematical one. In fact, part of the problem is also the act of creating a complete set of interpretations to draw from when attributing a cause to our observations.
In the end, there is nothing actually wrong with talking about the facts associated with the various observations, and the various interpretations that are supported by those facts. This is in fact what the Internet was designed to do: to foster a more free exchange of information than what existed prior. The problem that you appear to be having is that you're used to a more centralized forum where threads can be deleted if they are deemed to be heretical. This works great for some disciplines where there have been a great number of predictive successes and which are heaviliy influenced by laboratory work, but astrophysics doesn't really fit into that mold (95% of the universe's matter remains elusive for you guys). So, the idea that you should be actively silencing alternative views for interpretations is a bit out of line. I'm completely fine with modifying my language to reflect less certainty in a generic sense. But, your appeals to formalism within astrophysics (the idea that Thornhill should just write a paper documenting his prediction in greater depth) do not work as a mechanism for convincing me that he's wrong. It merely demonstrates that he has not jumped through the hoops that are expected of him by the larger group of scientists to make his point (which likely has some sort of historical details that I'm not yet aware of). It does not demonstrate that we should not even consider that electricity in space does things of importance.