Talk:Plasma cosmology

Notice: Elerner is banned from editing this article.

The user specified has been banned by the Arbitration committee from editing this article indefinitely. The user is not prevented from discussing or proposing changes on this talk page. Posted by Thatcher131 03:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC) for the Arbitration committee. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience.

Expert needed?

An anonymous editor just requested an expert to look at this article. I certainly do not not object to further work by an expert, but I doubt that you will be able to find anyone on Wikipedia more expert on this specialized sideline of science than ScienceApologist and myself, who have already contributed heavily. --Art Carlson (talk) 15:14, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Heaven forbid Eric Lerner should contribute anything to his own party after you gatecrashed, drank all the beer and threw him out. :-P Jon (talk) 15:42, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I hope the editor requesting an expert did not have Eric Lerner in mind, since he has been banned from editing this article. Eric Lerner could contribute his expertise on this talk page, but I doubt he has anything to say that has not already been considered. BTW, you surely are not suggesting that Eric Lerner or anybody else owns this article, are you? --Art Carlson (talk) 04:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

With the greatest of respect, ScienceApologist may be familiar with mainstream astronomy, and have worked alot on the article, but is no expert on plasma cosmology. The errors in the article are extensive. (a) Alfven did not propose "that the universe was an ionized equal mixture of matter and anti-matter", an idea which is dervived from Klein and Dirac. Aflven only explained how they might coexist, and coined the word "ambiplasma" (b) Plasma cosmology has not been rejected, as is evident from the signatories of the http://cosmologystatement.org/ though particular parts of it have been criticised, and it is not accepted. (c) It is inaccurate to say that "The conceptual origins of plasma cosmology were developed during 1965 by Alfvén in his book Worlds-Antiworlds" (which was published in 1966, and ignores the 1962 paper by Alfven and Klein, and ), and ignores Alfven's papers from the 1930 and 1940s (d) Klein-Alfven cosmology is not synonymous with Plasma Cosmology. (e) The section "Comparison to mainstream cosmology" has just one reference that mentions plasma cosmology making the whole section opinionated unverifiable original research, that largely promotes "mainstream" cosmology. (f) There is no such thing as a "non-standard cosmology", and the reference does not refer to Plasma Cosmology in this way, and I know of no source that does.

The article had a genuine expert on the subject, Eric Lerner, who has published both peer-reviewed articles on the subject, and a book, and writes impartial science articles for a living. Statements of fact in his banning offered no examples of wrong-doing or misrepresentation when contributing to this article. --69.42.49.67 (talk) 16:16, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

If you are interested in actively improving the article, you can propose concrete changes based on your points. We can then discuss them here one by one. Otherwise we will just have to wait for an editor who is both an expert on plasma cosmology (not just on plasma or cosmology alone) and is also considered by the community to be civil and constructive. That would be great, but I won't hold my breath. --Art Carlson (talk) 09:51, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

That is a hoot.. There have been multiple attempts at 'civil and constructive' contribution by experts on this topic and for years their efforts have been attacked by the non-experts in an un-civil and destructive manner here. - Ionized

Sounds like you had an expert, and then you booted him. Which seems to be the usual course of events when someone who is merely knowledgeable of the topic at hand crosses swords with someone who is knowledgeable of Wikipedia administrivia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.84.81.41 (talk) 18:29, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately all the experts relevent to plasma cosmology are banned from this wiki. Its a tragic situation at the moment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.158.3.106 (talk) 01:50, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, Eric Lerner is the only person banned from editing this article. It is indeed unfortunate that he was not willing to contribute constructively to the article. --Art Carlson (talk) 07:21, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Main differences between PC and mainstream

This edit, adding a subsection Main Differences to the section on Comparison to mainstream cosmology, is highly problematical. It leans very strongly to Lerner's flavor of PC, although that of Alfven is more significant and there have been a few others along the way as well. It makes statements like "Big Bang Theory: The universe is assumed to have a beginning and an end in time.", which is wrong both in terms of the difference between an assumption and a conclusion from observations, and in terms of the content. That is, there are seriously discussed BB cosmologies that do not have a beginning in time (evolution in time, yes), and most mainstream cosmologists do not believe there will be an end to time. The points are phrased as predictions, even where the issue has been long-ago settled by observations. I did not revert it immediately because it may be possible to refactor it in an acceptable way, but I do not have time now to work on it. --Art Carlson (talk) 08:48, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I submit that this is an Iantresman sock: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Iantresman. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:50, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

No its me adam nailor. Cant sign in at the moment. I think you will find all the references were published in very reputable journals that dont publish non science. I could refine it in the future to make each prediction more specific and in line with what the literature says. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.143.195.19 (talk) 23:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Mr Carlson, am I correct in thinking that what you wrote above is the main issue you saw with that section I wrote and the rest is largely OK? If so you (seeming to have a relatively good knowledge of BBT) can write for each section the properties of BBT, or predictions BBT theory makes, so they aqre correct. And me, having read all of the plasma cosmology literature, right up to most recent developments and models of Lerner, Verschuur, Peratt, et al, can write the equivalent plasma cosmology properties/predictions. There is probably room for nucleosynthesis and element abundances predictions each has made too. So go ahead and copy that section here and write what you think is a reasonable representation of BBT, and I'll add in the PC version afterwards. adam nailor

Anyone going to respond to the above suggestion? adam nailor —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.158.3.106 (talk) 01:48, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the current section on Comparison to mainstream cosmology already does a good job. --Art Carlson (talk) 07:30, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Adam, do you have a user account, even if you can't, for some inexplicable reason, sign in to it at the moment? The fact that I can't locate such an account, and a search turns up your name nowhere except this talk page, leads me to wonder whether ScienceApologist's suspicion could be correct. --Art Carlson (talk) 07:42, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Edits by 213.100.87.94

This edit entails a relatively large number of changes by an anonymous editor. Some may be OK, but for others I am less certain. Would the editor in question (or any supporter of the edits) please explain them here? --Art Carlson (talk) 14:04, 5 December 2009 (UTC) (For the record, these changes were reverted shortly after by Dougweller. --Art Carlson (talk) 08:53, 22 February 2010 (UTC))

Looks to me like there is a lot of POV writing in this article, and in particular, from the point of view that "real scientists don't look at plasma cosmology." It concentrates primarily on the work of one man, and uses POV weasle-words to belittle him. Very poorly written, and uses a lot of double-speak in order to "amaze the natives" so to speak. Very condescending, and to the writer, I will offer this advice: people are tired of double-speak and condescending tone from so-called experts on cosmology. Either come up with something that makes sense or go get a real job. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.247.223.176 (talk) 02:49, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Strong bias in this article

This article seems to be drowning in undertones of bias against plasma cosmology, repeatedly substituting praise for the Big Bang theory instead of actual article relevant explanations of Plasma Cosmology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.106.115.35 (talk) 21:27, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Your comment is not helpful. Be specific about which passage you find biased, tell us why you think it is wrong or unfair, and suggest a better formulation. That is the way to be constructive and improve the article.

You apparently find this sentence offensive: "Plasma cosmology has been developed in much less detail than mainstream cosmology and lacks many of the major predictions and features of the current models." I believe this to be incontrovertably true and one of the most important facts to know when comparing the two theories.

--Art Carlson (talk) 08:23, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Woah there, I never pointed out anything in specific. I said the article, as a whole, took a position that was anything but neutral and your hasty comment does not help that.

He's right - there is not "stealth form of creationism" in Alfven's work - he was attempting to put forward an explanation for the lack of antimatter locally, given that quantum theory is utterly symmetrical with respect to matter and antimatter. That is a statement that makes me cringe - in fact the BB could justly be called a sort of religion, in that scientific arguments against it are resolutely ignored. The ambiplasma cosmology was dropped even by its proponents when the annihiliation radiation was not seen. I know, I studied Alfven's work as a physics student and was initially very enthusiastic about it, but had to admit it was wrong because the non-thermal radiation was not seen. 71.56.118.247 (talk) 00:25, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

BTW I am Antimatter33 (talk) 00:26, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I also want to be more specific here - this article is shit. Alfven was a giant in physics, his thinking was rigorously accurate - even he stated that if there existed any regions of antimatter they would necessarily be on the level of galaxy clusters. There was nothing in his work about x-ray bursts because these were not seen when he was alive. That is just total garbage. There is a cadre of graduate students who drink the standard model Kool-Aid and are incapable of physical or even logical thought, and who know nothing of history. That is what we have here.

What is the grounds for banning Lerner from editing this article? I thought he had some knowledge about both PC and BBT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.82.45.227 (talk) 18:27, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Lerner does have plenty of knowledge and plenty of published papers. The problem is that his papers refute most of what this article says. Specifically parts that imply PC can't account for light element abundance. Lerner has also done a lot of interesting published work on Lyman Break Galaxies that supports PC. Don't expect those to see the light of day around here though.

158.61.151.200 (talk) 00:30, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Reorganize the article?

I make no claim to any sort of cosmological expertise; instead being firmly in the layman realm. However, it might prove constructive to reorganize this article, for readability purposes. For the sake of argument (and to provide a starting point for discussion), I suggest the following organization:

Introduction/"Executive Summary" of the theory - The bottom line

1. History & Major contributors/influences to PC theory

2. Scientific bases of PC theory

3. Significant differences between Plasma and "Standard" Cosmologies & Points of contention

4. Hypotheses & Observations in support

5. Criticisms of PC theory & Unresolved science

6. (The usual Wikistuff)

199.2.126.188 (talk) 07:37, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

As the Big Bang Theory is drowning in its fudge factors, it must be possible to give this alternative theory some credance.