The BICEP2 Project at the South Pole:

Apologies if this has been done....
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http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.5166v1
Killing the Straw Man: Does BICEP Prove Inflation?

James B. Dent (1), Lawrence M. Krauss (2,3), Harsh Mathur (4) ((1) University of Louisiana at Lafayette, (2) Arizona State University, (3) Australian National University, (4) Case Western Reserve University)
(Submitted on 20 Mar 2014 (this version), latest version 9 May 2014 (v2))
The surprisingly large value of r, the ratio of power in tensor to scalar density perturbations in the CMB reported by the BICEP2 Collaboration provides strong evidence for Inflation at the GUT scale. In order to provide compelling evidence, other possible sources of the signal need to be ruled out. While the Inflationary signal remains the best motivated source, the current measurement unfortunately still allows for the possibility that a comparable gravitational wave background might result from a self ordering scalar field transition that takes place later at somewhat lower energy. However even marginally improved limits on the possible isocurvature contribution to CMB anistropies could rule out this possibility, and essentially all other sources of the observed signal other than Inflation.
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And of course again, the following very pertinent reminder......

 

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If you could see how hard we are laughing,,,,,,,, "don't make me come back", that's too much, can I get some more of that? Thanks RC, bye for now again. I hope I haven't made you come back to defend against more trolling, but I'm sure I have.

 

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You just effectively admitted to trolling in that (my bolding) bit above, Declan. I won't report you, as it is neither here nor there to me anymore. Laugh away. It does not signify at all when all is said and done, does it?

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You still haven't admitted to being sucked in by that BICEP2 claim to 'proof' of this or that, Declan. Nor has Cptn S and 'friend' trolls apologized for going ape at the messenger who suggested they look closer for themselves and not just 'accept' the BICEP2 claims because they were from 'mainstream' (like you and the other 'experts' and 'scientists', over there and elsewhere, were doing until I and then others pointed out it was seriously flawed in many aspects).

That BICEP2 paper 'publish-or-perish'-driven FARCE should be enough to make you stop and rethink everything you 'believe' about me AND mainstream 'authority' and think for yourself. Or is that too much for the ego you've already invested in your trolling on the net so far? Hope not, and that you will eventually learn a valuable lesson once your own failures 'sink in' past your thick-hided ego. Best of luck.

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He's been waiting in the wings in the "Current users online" all bloody morning!

 

I had logged out at least once. So your due diligence and veracity is as wanting and careless as usual, paddo. Better luck with your next trolling post.

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Hi Trippy.

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OK. Bye for now (unless I have to come back and defend against trolling cheap shots, as I trust you agree I am honour bound to do unless the trolls' cheap shot posts are deleted by you/other mod before I see them).

Anyhow, I note you and others have been trying to improve moderation efforts/situation lately. Kudos to you and them for that. Keep it up!

Cheers and 'read you round', Trippy.

Thanks, and no hard feelings.

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Sometimes the internet reminds me of the public being allowed to visit Bethlem asylum in the eighteenth century, and watching for entertainment the inmates in their throes of lunacy. I find no entertainment in this myself on the net, but find the behaviour of some, especially on forums, beyond odd and very scary.

 

I agree with you. I hate to see pseudo-science go unchallenged but I definitely feel very uncomfortable when it becomes evident that the person presenting the pseudo-science has real psychological problems. It is a dilemma...

 

Yes, your right, pseudo-science should not go unchallenged and it is a dilemma. The mods must have considered post 145 not to be delusional.

 

Exactly.....In essence there is as much rubbish on the net and forums, as there is reputable links.
I also see no entertainment value in such sorry state of affairs.

 

Personally I'd like to hear your summary of recent events associated with the 'coming together' of these two great experiments to resolve the 'total dust component' of the gravitational wave signature. The media trumpeting failure is irrelevant nonsense. Fodder for crank response on the internet. So what do you think? One thing that was interesting about the media reports is the 'coming together' of the experiments through some type of negotiation. Leads me to think they might already know there's a component of the total signature that can only be associated with the primordial gravitational wave? These are awesome experiments. I love it. The folks doing the theoretical and experimental work are awesome.

 

@ brucep, That's one of the most glaring negative aspects of the "popular" press when trying to report on very complex science. The words and concepts take on a more flexible and fluid meanings than they do in the science journals.

All these "flaws" that are being so glibly spoken of and just what they mean is being spun as bad as any factional political debate you will find on the cable outlets. When a respected science mentions "a possible problem", what the popular press and crackpots see is "The work is wrong!!! Here the proof!!! See I told you so!!!", when the thing actually reported is only "a possible problem". That's how science is done, you always look for possible problems. NO ONE has found any actual problems with the BICEP2 team's work, only suggested that IF there are problems this is where they MIGHT be.

Then you have people like one who I will not mention by name because his head has a tendency to burst into flames, those people who are so involved in their pet crank theory that EVERY word is spun, misconstrued, twisted to validate their crank theory. If you had worked for decades to get your TOE in the final stages of readiness and protected it tooth and nail from all the people out there who are trying to steal it, you would also grasp any straw to keep from having to start over and endure another decades worth of ridicule and derision.

But the actual bottom line as to where the BICEP2 results stands. The work was meticulous to the extreme, it's all there for anyone to view the care and depth they went to before releasing their findings. No one has proven anything like a flaw or mistake (other than cranks no one even asserts that). Planck results will be out in another couple of months. So far BICEP2, has stood the test of close scrutiny. The scientific community as a whole still is confident that Planck will probably confirm BICEP2, only some people have SUGGESTED where any problems MAY lay, as they should for science to work.

 

Well said brucep and lunny!

 

Thank you Declan. I figured you'd say that and since you're working in cosmology we're pretty fortunate to hear your summation of the events. I love this science. Thank you Paddoboy for starting this thread and sticking with it. Cosmology the final frontier. Love it. Can't wait to read the paper in October.

 

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I may only be a rank amatuer at this game, but I also share the same enthusiasm that you obviously do.
Taking lunny's words, when I hear the continuing crackpots claiming "The work is wrong!!! Here the proof!!! See I told you so!!!" when science itself does the correcting, or the revelation of "a possible problem", makes me want to puke.
The scientific method and peer review may not be perfect, but its lead us to the great position of where we are today. And I see that on the cusp of something really revealing.
As I have mentioned before, I hope I'm still around when we do have an observational ToE, have put men on Mars, and maybe even a breakthrough in propulsion physics that can lead the way to the stars.

 

Oh yeah I blew it. Space the final frontier. I read the paper right after you started the thread so when all the media comments started up I thought I missed something and went back and read everything over. Anyway the scientific method is a gift humanity gave itself. Are we going to use the information it derived for us or just bend over and kiss our collective ass goodbye? The thing is for amateur enthusiasts like you and me we can find 'most any scientific information we might want' in the literature. Rank amateurs are cranks. You and I, we're enthusiasts. Yeah.

 

Everyone is waiting. With bated breath. Here the big topic for discussion is what the anti-LambdaCDM people will come up with next if Planck confirms BICEP2's findings. Considering that the data collected by that most beautiful all recent science instruments, Planck, covers the entire cosmos, in every direction, to a much greater resolution than the BICEP2 instrumentation. Because cosmic dust is not spread out uniformly through every square meter of the Universe, and the CMB is the most uniformly distributed anything in the Universe, Planck will be able to settle any questions about that.

As far as a group of investigators picking and choosing data to use and how to present it? It sounds bad if presented as: "They sat around tried to pick out the data that would support a position, and voted on it." But the reality of it is more like: "There is so much data we had to cut it off at some point, only so much computer time, only so many pages to report, only so many hours to examine it, only so much etc, only so muchetc. What we argued about was not what to pick to include but what to exclude" That is routine in all branches of science today, it's called the TMI dilemma. We have reached the point that we can collect many times more data than we have any hope closely examining it all. Having TMI (Too Much Information) in science is really new to science, we whine about it, 100 years ago they would have given their eye teeth to be in our predicament.

 

Hi Declan.

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Like I said, while I will post rarely from now on (depending on what transpires requiring a response from me), I will be reading you all still. I saw this below; and it deserves a rebuttal response regarding your 'version' etc of what went down with that BICEP2 fiasco.

I am taking a moment out of my busy reading/working schedule to set you straight, again, as to what actually 'went down' with that BICEP2 obvious publish-or-perish'-motivated announcement/paper farce.

The way you 'tell it' above, is a patent self-serving and apologist 'version' of events, which has been observed by me and other objective mainstream commentators on both the announcement AND the 'work' by the BICEP2 on the 'treatment' and 'assumptions' and their 'massaging' of the data to suit their obvious 'confirmation biases' for BBang etc 'interpretations/conclusions etc.

The 'riders' which they included a bout 'possible problems' were then dismissed on totally UNforunded basis, given that the maths and treatments and conclusions could have been more 'artifacts' of 'mathematical methods' applied, and data-points ignored as 'insignificant' even though they had NO way of telling the difference between the 'signal' and the possible alternative causes 'noise' and 'contra-indications' etc.

Just because they admit 'possible problems' doesn't excuse them for active confirmation biased assumptions/interpretations 'built into' the exercise from the start. Nor does it excuse their 'publish-or-perish' HASTE in announcing and caliming all sorts of things which the data did NOT actually support UNLESS it was 'interpreted' through the confirmation biased self-delusions of many of the 'team' along the way from raw data (limited/flawed at that!) and the 'final paper/conclusions/claims made which implied they has 'evidence' and/or 'confirmation' of 'primeordial' gravity waves signals and 'strong support for BBang hypothesis 'expansion/inflation etc processes.

If you actually read ALL of the MAINSTREAM comments from ALL the later scrutineers of the BICEP2 announcement/claims etc, you will see that mainstreamers who KNOW about these things have ALSO sen that BICEP2 paper/claims/announcement as an obvious 'rivalry'-motivated announcement to be 'first/before' anyone else. On the way, that exercise was RIDDLED with UNscientific assumptions/interpretations/flaws and systemic/methodological 'short cuts' which they then used to dismiss as insignificant the data which was contradicting and the data which was MISSING as well, in order to claim that their 'massaged' GIGO math-treatments 'signal' was what they claimed...when it was immediately clear to anyone objectively reading that 'work' that it was no such thing based on what they had.

It seems that your predilection for your own brand of 'confirmation bias' has led you to 'read' what went down in your own self-serving way, rather than acknowledging it was NOT ONLY CRANKS that saw the major flaws (and not just 'possible problems, as the 'team' put it which was still dismissed as probably insignificant and would not change their 'finding' etc).

Even after mainstreamers pointed all that out to them, the BICEP2 'team' STILL released their PAPER weeks later as if future Plank data would support their findings!

And more serious still, I had long made comments about the 'mixmaster' of processes across local AND far-deep space reaches of the universe which ATTENUATE and affect all radiation which tends to produce the observed CMB, and that is NOT 'primordial' in origin/process. Even now, the mainstream has yet to account for all the various relevant processes I have identified which would affect the observations made of the CMB. What they are still missing is identified in my upcoming ToE (FYI, I occasionally over the years attempted to start discussions on some of these processes/observations etc, but the usual mod-troll idiocy sabotaged all proper discussion of same so I gave up and will only now explain them via my complete and consistent reality-based ToE publication).

Anyhow, Declan, even mainstreamers saw the farce unfold and why and how it went down as it did from the moment the BICEP2 team decided that rivalry, ego and publish-or-perish imperatives/motives were more important than the strict and rigorous scientific method. So your above biased and 'apologist-for-flawed science' version of that farce is obviously your own 'confection', and not history as it was. So, Declan, now that you have been set straight on what went down with that BICEP2 work/announcement/paper fiasco, please learn from it and drop that unscientific penchant or yours for presenting partial info and confirmation biased 'versions' of what went down there.

If that BICEP2 paper/claims was offered up by some alleged 'crank', you would have crucified them! Yes?

But since it came from 'mainstream' team, you and your fellow 'true believer' zealots/trolls swallowed it hook-line-and-sinker, simply based on 'mainstream authority/source', even before doing due diligence scrutiny of your own (as I strongly suggested) to find the serious and many FLAWS (no other word for it except maybe 'frauds'?) in that sloppy mainstream offering.


Do better and THOROUGH 'due diligence' before you again attempt to 're-write history' to suit your own personal subjective ego needs and apologist bias for mainstream authority/sources/claims/assumptions etc EVEN WHEN THEY ARE SO PATENTLY WRONG. If you are ever to become a truly objective scientific observer/commentator, you must do better! Good luck, Declan.

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Now, if there is no more 'cheap shot' revisions of history and other people, I shall return to read-only mode. Read ya round, Declan, everyone!

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That's the way most see it I suggest. It's only unreasonable, unsupported, personal agendas that can skew that view.

We all wait for October for final outcomes.

 

An article dated 20th June 2014:
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http://news.discovery.com/space/cos...l-wave-discovery-team-urge-caution-140620.htm
So nothing has changed, it’s just that now we are seeing the scientific process play out in a very public arena. The BICEP2 results stand until the Planck team make their results public later this year — only then will we know whether or not primordial gravitational waves have been detected":
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Nothing new, just further confirmation as to where things stand.